Escape Rooms for Safety Training
Escape Rooms
Escape Rooms, in-person or virtual, create a game situation where participants must work together to solve various challenges in order to complete a common goal, and that goal is usually to "escape" from the room. Reading this description, you might have had a lightbulb moment and realized how closely this description of escape rooms aligns with games and activities used in safety training.
First, escape rooms are team activities and if you've been following SafetyFUNdamentals for a while, you know the value of teamwork in learning activities. One of the key parts of accelerated learning principles is collaboration and learning from peers. Escape rooms are usually designed so that participants need to rely on and learn from each other in order to be successful.
Next, the escape room requires participants to solve various challenges. It quickly becomes apparent that some escape room team members have strengths that others may not. These strengths may be based on experience, education or something else entirely. When using team-based training activities, the same benefits occur. If a training activity is focused on hazard recognition, one team member might be better at recognizing ergonomic hazards and another may be an expert in chemical safety but these individuals working together will allow the team to accomplish more and the team will be stronger.
Escape room participants have a common goal - to escape the room, either virtually or real enclosed space. Training classes also have a common goal, or at least should, and this is to meet the training class objectives.
To use escape rooms as a safety training activity, it's recommended to design the game so all activities and challenges tie to the safety training topic. Of course, you could add a simple puzzle for the sake of adding in a challenge but safety training class time is usually limited so these non-class related activities can be fun but will not add true value.
Review the infographic below to get started.
Leave a comment
Comments will be approved before showing up.
