ChemEscape: Educational battle box puzzle activities for engaging outreach and active learning in general chemistry

Escape rooms are physical adventure games where players solve a series of puzzles and riddles. Using clues and hints participants focus on completing a series of tasks within a set time frame. Because participants of escape rooms interact with a variety of challenging problems in an experiential manner they are of interest as active learning tools. To engagingly accommodate a broad audience, however, the puzzles in traditional escape rooms have limited requirements for specialized participant skills or knowledge. In contrast, ChemEscape strives to both engage and have participants enhance and apply discipline specific skills and knowledge during puzzle solution. This is achieved by incorporating opportunities to learn about objectives and hands-on problem-solving skills typical of research-based experiences. Described herein are four hands-on general chemistry puzzles for use in the novel Battle Box design at the grade 4–12 level and first year general chemistry.