2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Over the last two decades, escape rooms have emerged as a social and team building activity. Participants must work in a team to solve complex puzzles by finding clues within the event space. These puzzles can range from word finds, math problems, riddles, or identifying clues. Escape rooms vary in difficulty. They should be difficult enough where they cannot be solved by a single participant, but easy enough that they can be solved in less than an hour. Recently, educators have explored implementing escape rooms as an active learning activity for secondary and higher education. Multiple studies have been conducted in STEM classes. The goal of this study was to investigate the use of escape rooms in civil engineering courses to improve students’ ability to solve an ill-defined problem and connect clues to the course content. The escape rooms required students to work as a team, communicate their solutions effectively, and increase their engagement and interest with the course material. Two different escape rooms have been developed and implemented: one in a mechanics of materials course and one in a design of reinforced concrete structures course. Both escape rooms were implemented as end of course review session where students were tasked with solving multiple linked, but separate puzzles on cumulative course topics. These puzzles assessed whether the students could identify the type of problem and key information and solve the problem by connecting the clues to course concepts. The escape room activity was assessed based on student survey feedback, instructor feedback, and student performance on the final examination. While participation in the escape room did not have a significant impact on the students’ performance, the students found the escape room to be an engaging activity which encourage teamwork and collaboration as well as review of the course material. Upon completion of the escape room, students had identified concepts that they needed to review prior to the final examination. This paper presents the design, creation, execution, and results of an escape room activity implemented in these two civil engineering courses.