Project: Lockbox─A Reusable Escape-Room-Style Activity for the Classroom

Escape rooms are making their way into the chemistry classroom as a learning tool. However, escape rooms require a large amount of preparation and setup, and they are only novel and exciting for a single play-through. For escape room games to be incorporated into multiple class periods, they must be streamlined for reuse. In this work, I introduce an escape-room-style activity called Project: Lockbox that can be used to review any topic in a chemistry (or other) course with classes of various sizes. New sets of worksheets containing the padlock codes for the lockbox can be written to fit different subjects, such as equilibrium, gas laws, point groups, etc., and the game can be repeated. This new classroom activity enables instructors to turn any review session into an active, hands-on teamwork experience that excites students and helps them review what they have learned.