Abstract:

Educational escape rooms represent an increasingly visible approach to active and collaborative learning, offering opportunities to connect subject content with problem solving, communication, and learner engagement. Within the Erasmus+ project EcoMystery: Climate Crisis Awareness and Civic Engagement in School Education, we designed a physical educational escape room aimed at supporting climate crisis awareness in the context of school education. This paper presents the testing of our developed escape room with participants who experienced the activity and reflected on its educational value. The study explored three main areas: participants’ perceptions of the escape room as a learning experience, the knowledge they reported gaining from its content, and their views on its potential usability in teaching practice. The research was designed as a qualitative study combining multiple sources of data to capture both participants’ immediate responses and broader reflections on the activity. The data were collected through observation of the participants during the escape room activity, as well as through questionnaires and interviews conducted afterwards. The gathered data were analysed using thematic analysis, which made it possible to identify recurring themes related to engagement, perceived learning, and pedagogical applicability. The study aims to explore how participants perceive the escape room as an educational tool for active learning about climate crisis-related topics. Attention is paid to its interactive, collaborative, and immersive character, as well as to its perceived potential for fostering discussion, awareness, and motivation in school settings. At the same time, the findings could provide insights into how participants understood the educational contribution of the escape room and what conditions they considered important for its effective classroom use. The study contributes to current research on educational escape rooms by offering empirical evidence from the testing of a physical climate-themed escape room. These findings also support the importance of the integration of active learning methods into teacher education, which is one of the key areas addressed in our KEGA project Innovative Learning Technologies in the Preparation of Future Mathematics Teachers.

Keywords:

Educational escape room, climate crisis, game based learning, active learning, problem solving.