Chemical Escape Room

Leading team

• Dr. Malka Yayon
• Dr. Shelley Rap
• Prof. Ron Blonder

Project members

• Vered Adler
• Hagit Levy
• Inbar Haimovich

Summary

A chemical escape room can be defined as an escape room that has been  adapted to the education system. Five chemistry Escape Rooms have been developed in our group, and are operating in many schools in the country. Some of the escape rooms are designed to be operated by teachers at their school-lab for specific chemistry topics (e.g., acids and bases, and basic chemistry), some are Do-It-Yourself Escape Rooms that teachers can build (the periodic table, energy, and sustainability sources), and one is a virtual room (the scientist with a mask). The puzzles in all the rooms are based on the curriculum concepts, but they are enriched with additional content. The rooms consist of experiments, “dry” puzzles, and require perseverance, cooperation, and out-of-the-box thinking. We study the development of 21th Century skill of chemistry students and classes who participate in the chemistry escape room activities.

Administration

Shani Motsa

Links for further reading

• The website of the chemistry group
• The website of the National Center of Chemistry Teachers

Publications

• Peleg, R., Yayon, M., Katchevich, D., Moria-Shipony, M., & Blonder, R. (2019). A lab-based chemical escape room: Educational, mobile, and fun! Journal of Chemical Education. 96(5), 955-960. doi:10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b00406
• Yayon, M., Rap, S., Adler, V., Haimovich, I., Levy, H., & Blonder, R. (2020). Do-It-Yourself: Creating and implementing a periodic table of the elements chemical escape room. Journal of Chemical Education. 97(1), 132-136. doi: 10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00660

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