By Sandra Bebbington
Imagine waking up one day in total darkness, unsure of where you are and unable to remember anything about yourself except your first name. You discover you are trapped in the middle of a maze called the Glade with several other people. Your mission is to find your way out while avoiding the Grievers – your life depends on it.
Or perhaps ….Danger lies before you, while safety lies behind, Two of us will help you, whichever you would find, One among us seven will let you move ahead, Another will transport the drinker back instead, Two among our number hold only nettle wine, Three of us are killers waiting hidden in line.
Both of these are opening scenarios for escape room activities in the library. Creating engaging interactive problem solving activities is an engaging way to connect with your students. Recently Julian Taylor and myself presented Breakouts and Beyond at the OLA Super Conference where we provided a quick overview of what a Breakout or escape room is and some advice on how to implement this type of activity in the library.
What’s an escape room or Breakout activity?
Escape room activities or Breakouts are where a problem, in the form of a narrative or storyline, is presented to a group and they are given a set amount of time to solve the problem. Through the discovery of clues and “micro” activities, (interlinked) participants try to solve problems/unravel the clues which all lead to a final reveal or box being unlocked. Technology can be involved but does not need to be – it depends on the activity and if technology enhances it or not. An activity typically lasts 45 minutes to an hour.
Any escape room / Breakout can be scaled up or down as needed. Groups can work collectively as one or in smaller groups either together or as a competition. They can be more intellectual where knowledge and skills are needed throughout or it can be more physically demanding (e,g. I did one for a scouts troop where they had to find clues in order to escape an island while attempting various physical challenges (climbing through ropes etc)) or it can be a bit of both. There are both physical ones that can be set up in the room/space/classroom and there are digital ones that you can have a group of people work on together.
If you are creating your breakout experiences from scratch then why not include your students in the creation process? This is a great opportunity to bring people together to create something for another group. For example,I worked with a student council at a local public library to design a breakout and create the clues (The Harry Potter Horcruxes).
Every escape room / Breakout includes a debriefing session at the end. Where the group is asked to reflect on their process, what they did well together and what they would improve upon next time. This allows those ever important collaboration, problem solving and communication skills to be solidified.
This type of problem solving activity has a number of benefits. It encourages the development of the soft skills we need to be productive members of society. It does so by having people work through problems using real world problem solving skills – “I am stuck in this situation – now what can I do about it?”. It also teaches people grit – learning to cope with failure and to persevere is not easy. To have low stakes opportunities to experience failure and develop that motivation to keep going and try again will help them when they are confronted with more high stakes situations where perseverance is required. Aside from soft skills, Breakouts or escape room activities allows for pre or post assessment. It allows you to see what skills or content need to be focused on or to review what what been learned at the end of a unit.
Escape rooms or Breakouts help bring different people together. It allows different talents and expertises to emerge and everyone to play a part in solving a bigger problem. This allows people to often see how others may be able to contribute to a community.
Materials and Activities
To run an escape room / Breakout a few materials are required:
- Lockable box
- Word locks
- Number locks
- Directional locks
- Key locks
- Small lockable boxes/bags
- Black light
- Invisible ink pens
- Hasp
- Miscellaneous (envelopes, stickers etc)
- Tons of imagination
There’s a company called Breakout EDU that has aggregated a wide variety of user-made Breakout activities and also sell Breakout boxes with a set of locks. The games used to be freely accessible but unfortunately as of last year they started charging a yearly fee of 60$. Alternatively, you can buy a kit and receive free access to their database of games for a year. The selection of games does make it a worthwhile investment – at least for one year so that you can see how various games are built and easily run an activity without too much time investment. Aside from that a general Google search will result in a number of educators and librarians creating and sharing amazing escape room activities.
I personally find though that my activities are much more successful when I have built them from scratch. My comfort level is much higher when I have built all the clues as I can fully understand the thought process that went into pulling it all together. Sometimes, I will take a ready made activity and customize it to my present situation. Or I will draw on a few different ones and create something entirely new and different.
There are also some really great community based groups that can guide or inspire you such as:
Facebook: Library Teachers Breakout EDU
Facebook: Breakout EDU (General Discussion)
Facebook: Future Ready Librarians
Facebook: Learning Librarians
There are also a number of completely digital escape rooms / problem solving types of activities available online such as:
Canadian themed Digital Breakouts
(Hint: This can be another great way to get students involved in the creation process. With Google Forms and Google Sites – it can be a rather challenging and fulfilling process to have kids create one for their peers.)
Here are a few more tips and tricks to help on your escape room or Breakout adventures:
- It is OK when they don’t escape! Not everyone does and that in itself is a teaching and learning moment
- As a moderator, it is ok to provide hints if you want to keep the momentum going
- Always review your activity, talk it out, do a run through when possible
- Post-it Notes help when building a breakout
- Keep each activity together in a plastic folder – file your folders
- Plan/Create some sections so that they don’t have to be done in order
- As soon as a lock is opened, instruct them to hand them in or leave them as is (There are great YouTube videos on how to “break in” to a lock you’ve been accidentally locked out of)
- Laminate clues to help them keep longer
For more information or to simply chat, please contact me at:
sandrabebbington[at]gmail.com
Twitter: @Sanbeb
Sandra Bebbington is a librarian and educator by day and a student by night. For ten years her focus has been information literacy, digital citizenship, education technology, gamification and library learning commons. For the past 6 years, Sandra has been the project manager for two dossiers at the Ministry of Education-English Sector Services (Québec, Canada): Information Literacy and Digital Citizenship. She has also co chaired the Quebec School Librarians Network (QSLiN). She has presented (virtually and in person), to both adults and children, at various schools, boards, universities and conferences in Canada and the U.S. Sandra has also taught information literacy and critical thinking at Bishop’s University. She loves fusing games and learning and making students think outside of the box, so she is a Breakout EDU facilitator. She has also helped develop the Learn and Lead and QSLiN online digital badge programs. Sandra is also the head of communications for the Quebec Library Association (ABQLA) and the editor in chief for their quarterly bulletin. She has published as well as reviewed a number of articles. In her spare time, (usually between 3AM and 4AM) Sandra is finishing up a postgraduate degree at Harvard on Learning Design and Technology.