Physical and Digital Educational Escape Room for Teaching Chemical Bonding

Abstract

An escape room uses a game-based active learning approach to develop students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills in an immersive environment. An escape room was developed to provide an innovative method to reinforce concepts in chemical bonding for a first-year general chemistry course. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was unsuitable to implement the escape room in a physical setting, as students need to interact in close proximity. To circumvent this problem, a fully digital escape room was developed using Google Forms, as it is cost-effective, accessible, and easy to use. Students’ feedback indicates that both escape rooms reinforce and motivate learning.