NATURAL HAZARDS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY: USING ESCAPE ROOM AS A LEARNING TOOL

Keeping the attention of students is one of the most difficult challenges teachers have to face.The large experience with distance learning (DAD) during the Covid-19 pandemic underlined how game is a potent educational instrument able to engage students and maintain their focus, at the same time helping to implement knowledge and improve critical thinking.In particular, the use of educational digital games further enhances skills and competences adopting reality tasks in a challenging path according to storytelling.One of the main goals for our activities for schools is to spread good practices to be adopted in case of natural hazards.Two competitive Escape Rooms have been developed and tested to prepare future citizens to save themselves and others during natural disasters and to educate them to environmentally sustainable behavior.The first was an Escape to run away from natural risks (seismic, tsunami and hydrogeological risks), created in occasion of the 9th Planet Earth Week 2021, involving more than 900 students of Middle Schools (ISCDE 2) and Primary Schools from all over Italy in two different races.The second Escape room is the final product of a meaningful participatory Project Based Learning (PBL) experience on environmental topics between researchers, teachers and students of the second class of a Middle School.The students have learned through real-life tasks and they personally have promoted to their peers the sustainable behavior to mitigate the effects of climate change.In particular, deforestation, wildfires, sea rising and acidification have been discussed to solve enigmas.This Escape was played online during World Earth Day 2023, involving almost 800 students of Italian Middle Schools, and in presence as a peer education experience for about 100 students of Middle Schools during the Fosforo Science Festival (Senigallia) 2023.These games are also a multipurpose and useful tool for teachers for new ideas of teaching activities.In addition, they are examples of effective active learning in which the students' skills and cognitive development are enhanced.Experiencing escape rooms during special events highlighted that they are both learning and dissemination tools and can therefore be used for different purposes, both at school as a tool for innovative teaching and in research to promote projects or disseminate new scientific findings.They are to be considered bridging activities between School, Research and Society.