Teaching & Design Process

Designing Digital Educational Escape Rooms for Sustainability Education

Students at the University of Hildesheim develop and test digital educational escape rooms that focus on sustainability topics. In these escape rooms, teams solve connected tasks as part of a larger mission, all within a limited time. Identifying the puzzles themselves is often part of the challenge.

While escape rooms are well established in entertainment and leisure, they are increasingly gaining ground in education. Educational escape rooms offer more than knowledge transfer: they foster interdisciplinary skills such as collaborative communication, creative thinking, and problem-solving.

The project Escape This! goes beyond using existing games. It empowers students to design their own escape games.

This process requires not only subject knowledge, but also:

• understanding target audiences and learning motivations
• breaking down complex topics into sub-tasks
• using storytelling to convey knowledge
• evaluating learning outcomes through gameplay

Project-Based Teaching

A blended learning course supports interdisciplinary student groups in designing their own escape rooms. The course combines synchronous and asynchronous teaching and focuses on integrated game design methods, sustainability content, and digital tool use.