Escape the lab!

Dan Cooper created an online escape room for his students – showing the variety of workplaces occupied by chemists.

"Sir, did you actually work in that lab?" a student asked during an online lesson. "Places like that don’t really exist, do they?"

This conversation resulted in me embarking on a project supported by the RSC Outreach Fund. I have created an online resource which aims to showcase a range of careers in the chemical sciences.

During an online GCSE lesson I had shown the class an old photo of a lab in which I used to work, to give some context of analytical chemistry. I was forced to abandon the lesson while the students dissected the image and asked every question possible about the lab.

"What does that machine do?", "how many people did you work with?", "what samples did you run?", "what was in that cupboard?", "what did you do with the results?", "who was your boss?", "how much is that instrument worth?"

The list went on. It’s as if they hadn’t seen a lab before! Which, of course, they hadn’t.

Later during a period of lockdown I began creating online escape room style games where students had to explore a lab in order to complete the game. I would insert relevant questions on chemistry content to make it a useful revision tool or summary task. Retaining students’ interest was difficult during the periods of remote learning, but these resources seemed to be engaging more than most.

The students told me this was not because of any amazing game mechanics or storyline, but because the students got to see inside an actual laboratory where people do real science.

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