Escape Rooms for the Classroom

Published on Friday, September 5, 2025 in Strengthening Schools Grants

What does a zombie outbreak have in common with English class? At Mattawan High School, they’re one and the same.

Co-teachers Dan Soard and Terra Shockley are creating themed escape rooms to help their students engage with lessons. They’re doing it with assistance from an MEC Strengthening Schools Grant, funded via partnership dollars through our power supplier Wolverine Power Cooperative.

Engaging Students

Together, Soard and Shockley teach Tech Reading and Writing 12. The curriculum focuses on developing the abilities that students need for postsecondary education and careers—especially critical thinking skills like analyzing texts and writing clear, logical arguments.

In teaching the class, Soard and Shockley quickly found two problems: If students couldn’t see why English class was relevant for their everyday lives, they wouldn’t be ready to learn. And if they were bored by traditional reading and writing assignments, they would retain less.

“Engagement is the most important part,” says Soard. “If we don’t meet them where they’re at, the learning doesn’t happen regardless of how we approach it.”

Zombies Attack!

One day when students came to class, Soard and Shockley presented them with a scenario: Zombies have taken over the school. Find your way out.

From there, the students had to work in teams to interpret clues, solve puzzles, and complete exercises like building the optimal paper airplane. Each step in the escape room was designed to reinforce class lessons and demonstrate a real-world application.

“The tone of the class felt different,” Shockley says. “The atmosphere changed. Social kids were more social, less social kids started leaning in, other teams went to help the ones that weren’t finished.”

The experiment was a huge success. It created lasting memories for each student—showing them not only that you could apply classroom concepts to real life, but also that learning could be fun and exciting.

What Comes Next

While it was originally intended as a one-off activity, the escape room created too many valuable experiences not to use it again. Like its zombie antagonists, it will be revived.

Soard and Shockley plan to create future escape rooms for three units. One introduces students to the class. Another covers career skills and finding personal happiness in one’s work. Yet another is about propaganda and understanding narratives, and it includes a reading of “Animal Farm.”

For the zombie scenario, Soard and Shockley bought just one prop: a lockbox they used for one of the puzzles. Their other supplies, including a handful of syringe-shaped gel pens, were gathered from around the school.

However, with their MEC Strengthening Schools Grant, the duo will be able to purchase new materials for more elaborate puzzles. It’s a fun way to make a big impact with students and demonstrates exactly why we feel it’s important to support schools with our program.

“When I was intern teaching in college, my supervising teacher told me fun was a four-letter word in her classroom,” says Soard. “It’s certainly not in ours.”

Apply Today: You have until Oct. 13 to apply for a Strengthening Schools Grant! Visit teammidwest.com/school-grants.