This escape room gives your students an engaging way to review what they’ve learned in your Biomes unit. It should be used at the end of your teaching unit.

In Task 1 – students match the name of each of Earth’s six land biomes (rainforest, desert, grasslands, temperate forest, boreal forest, tundra) to the conditions of temperature and precipitation that characterize that biome. If they match the cards correctly, the puzzle mat will reveal ten letters that form a code word. That code word, in turn, gives the students a key to some of the letters they’ll use in the final task to decode an encrypted message.

In Task 2 – students read about six animals they may or may not be familiar with and use inference skills to determine which biome the animal lives in. If the task is completed correctly, students will collect an additional code word to help them with the encrypted message. I highly suggest hiding the animal cards around your room to introduce an element of scavenger hunt and a chance for students who might otherwise be struggling to get their team ahead in the game.

In Task 3 – students read a six-paragraph article about the ways in which plants are adapted for different biomes. Don’t worry if your own unit hasn’t included much information on plant adaptations. The reading will give students all they need to answer the questions. If students do a good job with the close reading, they’ll find two more code words that give them letters for the encrypted message.

In Task 4 – students use all the letters they have gathered from all the other tasks to decode the encrypted message. The decoding takes some time and if students haven’t been careful with the other tasks they will not have accurate clues to work with and may have to go back to previous tasks to collect the information they need.

Because your students will finish the tasks after different lengths of time, I have included in this resource an optional writing task for students to respond to the quote (the encrypted message). It could be started in class and finished as a homework assignment so that all groups have to complete it. But of course, you don’t need to use it at all unless you choose to.

This Escape Room doesn’t require any special materials like combination locks or boxes, but it certainly could be adapted to make use of those things. I do recommend that you have some kind of simple reward for the winning team or for all teams who accurately manage to decode the message.

This is a low prep activity. You could do it with very little cutting or laminating but for best results, I suggest that the station materials be printed on card stock and laminated. This resource includes teacher instructions, student answer sheets, all puzzle materials, notes on setting up your room, and a complete teacher key to all of the tasks. Have fun!

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