If you try this activity with your students, we’d love to see what you do. Share your journey via the #Inspired2Learn hashtag on your preferred social platform.

Discipline: A good escape room calls on multiple disciplines in order to escape so with creativity you can likely come up with a story and puzzles for any content area. 

Age level: Upper elementary through high school. 

Time: At least one full class period. 

Several years ago Escape Rooms became a form of entertainment like bowling or karaoke. People paid to get locked in a room with a storyline and series of puzzles and clues that had to be solved in order to “escape”. Several malls now include escape rooms that feature different levels of complexity. While teachers don’t have the time to create hydraulic mummy tombs that shoot out smoke and fire when a clue is missed – simplified versions of these popular games can be made for the classroom to foster inquiry, teamwork, and a high level of engagement.

Here are some resources to get you started: 

• Using Escape Rooms to Enhance Literacy in Elementary School (Edutopia)
• Using Digital Escape Rooms to Make Learning Fun (Edutopia)
• The Rise of Educational Escape Rooms (The Atlantic)

To create an escape room challenge in your classroom you’ll want to start with the following: 

Create a story and a purpose. 

This will be something you’ll tie to your curriculum. So, if you are studying ancient Egypt – the escape room could be themed around that content. The story could be about an archaeologist who is unearthing a tomb and gets stuck there. He must solve several puzzles in order to get out and the puzzles rely on his understanding of Ancient Egyptian culture. For another example, if you are studying stories about the hero’s journey in English you might be a hero stuck in that journey who wants to get back home but must go through a series of tests that mark each step of the journey in order to make a triumphant return. 

Create the puzzles. 

In order to advance through each step and ultimately escape/complete this adventure, students must complete a series of puzzles. You can make these puzzles anything from multiple choice quizzes to word scrambles to design challenges and more. Here are a few sources to consider when crafting your puzzles. Ideally, each puzzle sticks to the theme of your escape room and the story you are creating. So, for example, in the Egyptian tomb, puzzles might include hieroglyphics and activities and questions that pertain to the content you’ve been teaching in the unit. Similarly, for the heroes journey students may need to reference texts you’ve used in class to solve the puzzles and the puzzles themselves will make sense as challenges appropriate to steps in the journey like “entering the unknown” or “restoring the world”. 

• Escape Room Puzzle Ideas for the Science Classroom (Kesler Science) 
• 26 Outrageously Fun And Easy DIY Escape Room Puzzles (My Escape Room Party)
• Escape Room Puzzle Tips (Escape Room Ideas)

Establish Expectations and Play!

When you have set up a series of puzzles you’re ready for students to play. You can read in the links above about elaborate setups that include actual locks but simply requiring students to get each puzzle correct before moving to the next will likely work just as well. Escape rooms work best in smaller groups so consider creating copies of your puzzles for several small groups to work on at once. Ideally, you want to create groups where multiple learning approaches can shine. Groups in which one person solves all the puzzles don’t lead to engagement for all so talk with your students about what solutions they can come up with to avoid this.