Sheila Gerald, a long-time teacher at West, created a lab for her students to have fun at school. Gerald made an escape room that teaches students about the digestive system in an entertaining way. “I just want my students to like to come to school, and show other teachers that learning doesn’t always have to come from PowerPoint,” Gerald said. 

During this lab, the students get together in teams and play the role of a ramen noodle and try to find their way out of the human body’s digestive system in an exciting way. “I know it sounds silly, but the students got really into it,” Gerald said. Gerald created an online form that the students had to fill out while interacting with the real life activities in front of them. 

Students eagerly roamed around the room and competed to be the first team done. Gerald brought out a real-life pig carcass that the students had to feel around in, to get to the next part of the escape room. Whoever completed the escape room the quickest got a human anatomy coloring book while the losers got a sticky note. Gerald used the sticky notes to tell some funny jokes to make the kids laugh.

During this escape room, students were quite excited about wandering the class and exploring fascinating things about the digestive system. Sophomore Luma Rosa was on the winning team and her favorite part about the lab was feeling inside of the pig carcass. “I liked that part the best because it gave me a better representation of what the digestive system looks like in real life,” said Rosa. This lab shows that teachers don’t have to teach in a boring way and that they can make kids want to learn in a fun way.