Designing an Educational Escape Room on Research Skills

Imagine yourself trapped in a room. Your only way out is to solve a series of puzzles with the clock ticking down… Can you crack the code and escape, or will you be locked in forever?

Unlock the secret to fun education with escape rooms! Whether you use them to consolidate learning or for formative assessment, these activities are a great way to engage the students in their learning.

However, creating your own escape room might be laborious and time-consuming. This is why I turned to ChatGPT and Canva to help me design an escape room as a gamified learning activity on the topic of research skills for my English as a Second Language (ESL) course.

The keys to escape room design

Learning objectives

Escape rooms have been part of my teaching practices for many years now. However, I’ve always used pre-made educational escape rooms, which usually include everything you would need to carry out the activity, from the scenario and the material to the answer keys. These were mostly relevant for my literature courses to reinvest or introduce a specific novel or short story. For example, I used an escape room for the short story The Veldt by Ray Bradbury and another one for the play Romeo and Juliet by Shakespeare. Although not free, both of these escape rooms were a fun and engaging way to practise literary analysis and reinvest literary devices!

However, I couldn’t find any pre-made escape rooms that would help my students practise research skills. Even though we had already covered these skills in previous classes, students still struggled with them. So, I wanted to find an effective and engaging activity for students to practise and review research skills before their final evaluation.

As I was familiar with escape rooms and their recurring patterns, I decided to design my own game that would meet my learning objectives. More specifically, my goal was to create an escape room on research skills for my ESL course called Field of Study 3. I opted for an in-person escape room instead of a digital one, as I wanted to create a hands-on activity where students could really be engaged.

First, I divided my lesson into 4 subtopics I wished to review during the activity:

• paraphrasing
• using direct quotations and in-text citations
• writing a bibliography
• evaluating the credibility of sources

These subtopics would be the content of the different challenges students would have to complete during the game. I also had to consider whether I wanted my students to complete them in a specific order or not. In my case, I decided that they could move through the challenges in any order, which made the activity easier to manage and design.

Theme and storyline

I needed to find an engaging theme for my escape room. To do so, I used ChatGPT 3.5 (free version). I created a prompt asking the AI tool to provide ideas of themes for an escape room on research skills. To make sure my prompt was precise and effective, I used some strategies proposed in the ChatGPT toolkit for teachers.

My prompt was: “As an English teacher at the college level, provide 5 examples of themes I could use to design an engaging escape room for my students on the topic of research skills, such as paraphrasing, citing sources, finding sources, etc.”

ChatGPT’s response to my prompt.

From the proposed ideas, I selected the theme “Time Travel Library.” I then used the same conversation with ChatGPT to request help in creating an engaging title and a storyline related to my theme that I would use in class to introduce the activity to my students.

Poster created with Canva presenting the storyline of the escape room using the text suggested by ChatGPT.

The Challenges

To complete the escape room, the students would have to solve 4 puzzles, as well as 1 final task. A good way to design your escape room is to start from the end, so you know what you want your students to achieve at the end. This also gives a goal to the activity. This is why I designed the final challenge first.

Final Challenge: Hidden Message

I decided to include a hidden message the students have to decipher as a final task at the very end to “escape the room”, and thus complete the activity.

First, I asked ChatGPT to generate a message related to the storyline that the students could find at the end of the escape room to congratulate them on mastering their research skills.

Text generated by ChatGPT for the final task.

I then used a pigpen cipher tool to transform this text into a hidden message. The main goal of the escape room would be to collect symbols representing letters after each challenge so that you can decipher the hidden message as a final task.

For each completed challenge, I would reveal to the team 3 letters associated with the symbols. Since there would be 4 challenges, students would end up with 12 letters of the alphabet. I included the 12 most common letters from the message so it would be easy for them to then use their deduction skills to find the missing letters and finally reveal the hidden message. With this in mind, I could now create each challenge.

I then guided the same conversation with ChatGPT, asking it to develop and provide examples of tasks and puzzles based on the theme (Time Travel Library) I had selected. From ChatGPT’s suggestions, I selected a challenge that I believe was appropriate for each subtopic:

1. Paraphrasing: Hieroglyphs Puzzle
2. Using direct quotations and in-text citations: Famous Historical Figures’ Quotations
3. Writing a bibliography: Time Traveller’s Diary
4. Evaluating the credibility of sources: Historical Artifacts

Once more, I used ChatGPT to design each challenge. In each case, it helped me in:

• developing the idea
• designing the scenario
• generating the instructions for the students
• creating the material itself
• producing an answer key

I also used Canva to design the game. Canva is easy to use, and I could easily find a template related to the escape room theme to make the material visually appealing. To enhance the experience, I turned all the material into hands-on props (scrolls, journals, puzzle pieces, envelopes, etc.).

The hands-on material I’ve created for the different challenges.

Challenge 1: Ancient Manuscript Puzzle

For this challenge, ChatGPT proposed a paraphrasing station in which students encounter a passage of text written in hieroglyphs. Due to the limitations of text-based communication, ChatGPT couldn’t provide the hieroglyphs itself, so I used the hieroglyph generator to create the ancient manuscript puzzle.

The goal of this challenge was to decipher the meaning of the passage using the special alphabet provided (the hieroglyph alphabet in this case).

Then, to crack the code, students needed to paraphrase the message using reported speech, paying attention to the verb tenses and punctuation, as we had covered in class.

I, as the game master, would then verify the answer recorded on their answer sheet and reveal 3 letters for the final challenge to the students if the answer was correct.

Challenge 2: Famous Quotes

For the 2^nd challenge, students would discover a set of ancient scrolls containing 6 direct quotations from famous historical figures. However, the quotes were all mixed up (I had previously cut them out and put them into an envelope)! Just like a puzzle, students had to first match each quotation with its original source and then with the right historical figure.

For example, they would get the quotation, “To be or not to be, that is the question,” which they would have to match with “Hamlet” as the speaker, and “Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Act 3, scene 1, 1601” as the source.

An example of a set of 3 puzzle pieces containing a quotation, its speaker and its source.

Then, they had to properly cite the direct quotation using in-text citations. As we covered both narrative quotations and parenthetic quotations in class, they could use either.

Again, I would verify their answer to uncover 3 more letters to the group of students.

Challenge 3: Time Traveller’s Diary

For the 3^rd challenge, students stumbled upon a time traveller‘s diary filled with notes from various historical events. I decided to create real journals to make the experience more engaging and realistic for the students.

For this challenge, they had to analyze the diary’s entries and find those containing reference material (direct quotations from famous historical figures).

For instance, they would encounter a passage in which Abraham Lincoln declares, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Using this quotation and the information provided in the passage, students had to create the bibliography entry according to the APA style, as seen in class: Lincoln, A. (1863). Gettysburg Address.

Once they had created appropriate bibliographical entries for all the reference material, I would reveal 3 more letters and they could move on to the next challenge.

One of the pages of the time traveller’s diary.

Challenge 4: Historical Texts

For the 4^th challenge, students encountered a variety of historical artifacts related to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. Using a checklist on the credibility of sources, they had to evaluate the reliability of each artifact, looking at its origin, significance, author, relevance, etc.

For example, students would come across a source that might seem reliable at first, but when taking a close look at it using the checklist provided, they should be able to realize that the source is not credible.

1 of the 9 examples of sources whose credibility students had to evaluate.

To complete the challenge, students had to agree as a team on the sources they considered credible. Once I approved their answer, 3 more letters would be revealed!

Decrypting the escape room logistics

Before the activity

Before the activity, I make sure that all my material is printed out and ready. For example, I cut out the pieces of the puzzle for the 2^nd challenge. I also put all the instructions and the material provided in plastic covers. This way, I make sure the material won’t get broken, so that I can easily reuse it.

I also prepare 1 answer sheet per team to facilitate the activity. This is the only handout the students can use to take notes and record their answers to then get the teacher’s approval and move on to the next challenge.

I prepare 3 copies of each challenge and 1 copy per team for the final challenge. Knowing that I would probably have 7 or 8 teams, having enough copies of each challenge ensures that students can easily move from one challenge to the other.

I take the time to introduce the game and the storyline in class. I briefly present the challenges. This usually prevents getting too many questions during the activity itself. I also use this time to present the rules of the games. Having clear rules will ensure the activity runs smoothly. Here’s a list of rules for the escape room activity:

• No electronic devices are allowed.
• No sharing of information with other groups.
• Groups must consist of 3 or 4 students.
• Material must be returned in order to proceed to the next challenge.
• No course notes allowed.
• Do not write on the material; use only the provided answer sheet.
• The first team to complete all challenges, unlock the time travel library, and win!

To facilitate the activity, I like to book a bigger room. Students like the change of scenery, and it gives me enough space to set up the material before class or during the break. In addition, it prevents students from being tempted to use their course notes or electronic devices.

I set up the material on a table in front of the classroom as I will be the one managing it during the activity. I want to make sure the students will return all the material in order before handing out the material for their next challenge.

During the activity

Once the teams are formed, I invite the students to move to the other classroom where the activity will take place.

I hand out the answer sheet (1 per team), let them choose their 1^st challenge and hand them the respective material. On my mark, they can tackle their challenge.

Once the 1^st challenge has been completed and verified and the students have returned all the material in order, I reveal the 3 letters.

The students then pick their 2^nd challenge. It can actually be part of the students’ strategies to decide in which order they want to complete the 4 challenges. A team that hasn’t considered it might end up having to wait for another team to finish the challenge to be able to get the material.

Once a team has completed the 4 challenges, they must decode the hidden message of the final task to complete the game and “escape the time travel library.”

If a team gets stuck on a challenge or falls behind, I provide extra clues to help them move forward. This way, I can make sure that there won’t be a significant time gap between the first and last team to finish the game. I don’t want any students to miss out on some of the learning, so I want to allow all the teams enough time to complete all of the 4 main challenges. The final challenge also works as a transition activity to keep them busy without the challenge containing learning material per se. So, when a team finishes, the other teams are usually already working on the final challenge and therefore, haven’t missed any of the learning material.

As the game master, I supervise the activity all along. I am always surprised to see how the usually less involved students get easily engaged in the activity. I believe that the competitive and collaborative aspects of the game motivate them. I usually tell them that the winning team will get a bonus point on their next evaluation, which motivates all the members of the team. I’ve never had to handle a student who would let the other team members do all the work. Driven by the desire to win the game, the students themselves make sure everyone on the team is involved. Sometimes, a student stands out as the leader and divides the task among the team members to be more efficient.

Unlocking education

Game-based activities such as escape rooms are on the rise at the college level. Not only are they fun and interactive, but they also boost student engagement and promote communication and collaboration. Are you thinking about using escape rooms in your classroom? Or maybe you have already tried them? Let me know about your experience in the comments!