Expanding STEM Participation through Student Designed Escape Rooms
2. Research-to-Practice Full PaperMichele Roberts2, Rachael Jones1, Jihu Lee3
1 Texas A&M University
2 Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis
3 Allen Academy
Introduction
The full paper describes secondary students’ experience in a summer STEM camp in which they puzzled through and then designed escape rooms. The theoretical framework used is experiential learning as explained by John Dewey (1938). In this methodology, students learn from being immersed in situations that at least mimic real life, if not fully real-life. Educators are challenged to find materials for students to learn within some experience. As successive experiences are integrated, the learning progresses. If the learning is within the capability of the student, curiosity to learn more may be aroused, and the learning continues. First, the students were told how escape rooms work and were put into teams for the escape room activities. The instructors set up escape rooms for the students to try their hand at escaping, and competing in teams to see which team had the shortest escape time. After the students all had the opportunity to try out an escape room, they worked in teams to create their own escape room. Another camp session involved basic cryptograph with ciphers, primarily shift ciphers. A requirement of their designs was to include a cipher somewhere in the design. Students were given lock boxes, numerical, alphabetic, and emoji locks of various kinds to use. They worked through a process of 1) deciding on a theme, 2) creating various challenges and clues, 3) sequencing the clues, 4) creating hints, 5) and setting up the escape room. Finally, the four teams each had the opportunity to escape the other teams’ rooms. The paper will describe more fully the students’ engagement and reaction to the escape rooms as well as the collaborative discussions and learning. Informal learning experiences are an important part of the pre-college learning that engages students and increases their interest in STEM. Escape rooms are a great way to immerse students in collaborative learning and boost their desire to learn more.
Keywords—STEM interest, escape rooms, experiential learning