Do your kids enjoy escape rooms? Or problem solving? Or maritime disasters? If you answered any of those yes, then this Maritime Disaster Escape Room should be a fun one for them.
I created this escape room for two reason. First of all, I was again hosting escape rooms at our homeschool co-op, and I wanted a new one. That is definitely a big enough reason, but my second reason was particularly important to me; I wanted to raise awareness of the sinking of the Sultana following the Civil War. Most of you have never heard of it either, I hadn't either until I learned my great-grandfather survived the tragedy but lost two of his brothers to it.
The Sultana disaster was a horrible, preventable tragedy caused by greed. Overshadowed by the assassination of President Lincoln, it was not widely reported despite over a thousand deaths most of which were Union Prisoners of War, my great-grandfather included. Not only was it not widely known, no one was ever held accountable! If you want to learn more about this maritime disaster, The Sultana Disaster Museum is a great place to start.
Now for the Escape Room! The idea behind this escape room was simply to bring attention to the Sultana disaster through comparison with the most well known maritime disaster, the sinking of the Titanic. While there are locks in this room, the students ultimately must fill out a 3 question response for how to prevent the disaster. I know this is not really how it would have happened as it is way too simplistic, but please play along.
Supplies for the Maritime Disaster Escape Room
Setting up the Maritime Disaster Escape Room
This room actually has little set up the day of. You do have to make a morse code recording ahead of time, so you have it to play back (more info on this in the
printables), but aside from the printables, there is not a lot of stuff to mess with.
So, if you are using the model of the Mississippi River Boat, assemble it before hand, and you will tape the little banners from the printable pack to it. If you are not using a model, tape these to the image of the Sultana in the printable pack.
Set both of your locks as indicated in the printables, and place one of the pretend pamphlets (How to Weld and Boiler Repair) in each of the containers and lock them up.
There are a few clues to cut apart in the printables and several posters. Each poster has a fact about the Titanic and a similar fact about the Sultana. These facts need to be cut apart, and then they can be laminated (if you want) or hung directly on the wall. The pictures of the Titanic and Sultana can also be hung on the wall if you are using them. Other clues, books, and the model boat can be placed in the room wherever.
You will need to keep the device you have to play the morse code recording with you or with whoever is going to control it.
Place the student instructions, hint cards, and some scratch paper in a folder, and you are ready to go!
Solving the Maritime Disaster Escape Room
Once the kids have read through the objective they will likely start reading the posters as they are colorful and there are a lot of them. Of course they are all scrambled, so they will need to use clues in the room to figure out what disasters they are dealing with and on which to focus. If you have books in the room, those will tell them the two disasters they are looking at. The pictures of the two boats or the model boat should give them a big push toward focusing on the Sultana as it is a river boat like the one with the colorful banners. The other clues contain information that will help them sort out which fact belongs to which ship.
.jpg "Maritime Escape Room Posters")
At any point in this, you can start quietly playing the morse code recording. I started it very quietly and slowly increased the volume. We had classes on either side, so my kids kept wanting to ignore it thinking the sounds were coming from the other classes. Eventually it was loud enough they could clearly hear the dots and dashes. Decoding it took them a bit (this is where the scratch paper comes in), but once finished it gives them part of their final answer.
The remaining parts are located by unlocking the locks. The 4-digit lock is in my opinion the easier of the two. There is a clue with facts about the Sultana, but there is a blank where information is left out. This is easy to see if you are reading it carefully especially when reading aloud. The needed information is on the posters, and the number will unlock the lock.
The 3-digit lock puzzle is a little more obscure, but sometimes you just need those out of the box puzzles to keep you on your toes. Let's go back to the colored banners. There are three colors, and they match three of the posters. If the kids grab those three posters and put them in the same order they can solve the puzzle. The trick though is all they have to do is count the words in each poster something so simple it is easy to overlook. Once unlocked, this provides the final bit of information for the answer sheet, and they escape!
While their ultimate goal here, to prevent the sinking of the Sultana, is impossible, this room is a great way to introduce kids to an event in history they have likely never heard of. It also gives them a chance to flex their critical thinking skills as they solve the puzzles!
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.jpg "Maritime Escape Room Posters")
.jpg "Morse Code Puzzle")
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