Abstract:

In higher education, it is increasingly important to offer students teaching methodologies that awaken their interest and their participation in the subjects, enabling them to acquire the specific skills of the degree they are studying. In this way, gamification techniques, by introducing playful elements in the learning process, significantly improve the participation and interest of students and their dedication, in addition to contributing in a more applied way and contributing to teamwork.

The proposal was to design and implement of an Escape Room for undergraduated in Chemical Engeneering Bachelor, oriented towards some issues and nowadays problems such as Energy and Transportation, Pollution and Safety of Resources and New Raw Materials, which constitute some of the great concerns and current challenges of the society, and that are faced within the area of Chemical Engineering. In this way and, through scientific puzzles, in which calculations and / or laboratory tests must be used, students must access combinations of numbers that will allow them to open mechanisms present in the Escape Room that give them access to other enigmas, following a precise sequence, and thus achieve the resolution of the problem.

In the initial proposal of Game, two phases are considered: the first attained to the design of the game in which by means of an open competition phase for final year students, one proposal was selected and the second, which would be the assembly of the Escape Room and the game itself.

For the first stage, after a public call between the students of the last Bachelor`s year, one the proposal resulted the best in terms of originality: “Measures to avoid environmental pollution “, so through the story of Dr. Arnold, a prestigious scientist who work in the field of enzymatic transformations, the students are encouraged to discover the important advances of Dr. Arnold’s team. The winner proposal, carried out entirely by three students of last year of the degree, details each of the games to be played and the corresponding material, including Matlab script, laboratory assemblies or reading of scientific literature.

Once this first stage was completed, which has managed to attract the attention of the students and we have had a great reception from the students, the restrictions due to the pandemic have forced us to rethink the concept of the game. In this sense, it is trying to make the escape room in a virtual way. So far, there are two platforms or programs that are being studied, both have their own advantages and weaknesses. On the one hand, we are trying to see the possibilities of "google forms" due to its simplicity and easy implementation, although the benefits are not very attractive. On the other hand, another of the programs is “genial.ly”, which presents a much more visual and attractive environment.

Keywords:

Escape Room, Chemical Engineering, Gamification, Virtual.