Escape Room Boxes

September 2019

During my first cohort meeting of UTeach Maker, we worked in our groups to solve escape room boxes. We had to solve a series of problems and puzzles in order to figure out the combination of the lock that sealed our boxes. Some of these puzzles required collaboration with the other groups in the room, but this was secretly kept from us until we discovered it on our own. Once we unlocked our box, we were rewarded with treasures like toy dinosaurs, unicorn stickers, and party poppers. 

Afterwards, we spent some time discussing how we could use escape room boxes in our classroom. We explored the ideas of using these during review days, for interdisciplinary activities, or even for community building exercises. These escape rooms could also incorporate additional elements such as technology use, scavenger hunts, and collaboration with others in the school. I even saw some of my UTeach peers implement completely digital escape rooms during their COVID-19 apprentice teaching semesters.