This post was updated March 4 at 7:50 p.m.

A Fiat Lux class now gives students the chance to build virtual escape rooms filled with the Lotus-eaters and the Cyclops’ cave of Homer’s Odyssey.

In Classics 19: “Homer’s Odyssey: Designing a Virtual Escape Room” – which was offered this quarter – students were tasked with creating a virtual escape room to help educate middle schoolers about classics. Fiat Lux seminars are one-unit classes that allow students to explore interdisciplinary studies without a letter grade attached.

Sarah Beckmann, an assistant professor of classics and the seminar’s instructor, said she and Deidre Brin, the director of the Digital Archaeology Lab, came up with the idea of hosting the class this fall while revisiting a conversation with a graduate student from three years ago. The UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archeology, an organized research unit with faculty from a variety of departments, struggled with outreach efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic and realized it could foster conversations with Los Angeles Unified School District middle school teachers as their students began learning about ancient civilizations, Beckmann said. Camille Acosta, a doctoral student in archaeology at the time and now an assistant professor of art history, archaeology and visual studies at UC Irvine, thought of the idea for an escape room based on a conversation with her nephew, Beckmann added.

Beckmann said that incorporating fun elements and visual components into education can help students with critical thinking and developing skills.

“The thought was that if you can connect high fantasy gaming to a classroom experience, it might pull in different kinds of learners,” Beckmann said.

Homer’s Odyssey follows mythical Greek hero Odysseus during the Trojan War as he navigates the transition out of his warrior lifestyle. Beckmann said the class focuses on books nine through 12 as Odysseus encounters different monsters and people.

Beckmann added that she worked with Brin to create a curriculum that allows students to create the virtual escape rooms based on Odysseus’ journey home. The platform will then be used to help LAUSD middle school educators teach their students about Egypt, Greece and the Mediterranean in line with the district’s learning objectives, Beckmann said.

“What’s great about this class is I have the background in this world of ancient Greece (and) the Mediterranean, and Deidre has not only the background, but the ability to put together the necessary platform to create an escape room online,” Beckmann said.

Brin said she has experience working on databases for the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology and that the digital escape room was a chance to test out different web applications in a rewarding experimental process.

In creating a virtual escape room, students connected games and activities to the content of the Odyssey, said Katelyn McClanahan, a first-year psychology student. As part of the designing process, they created activities based on the Odyssey, found background audio and came up with clues for a middle school audience, she said.

McClanahan said she took the class because she was determined to take at least one Fiat Lux course her freshman year. She added that she has always loved escape rooms, and she has never failed at solving one.

McClanahan said one key challenge of the class was learning new skills, especially since many of the class’s members do not have a background in computer science. She added that she rushed to take the class as soon as she saw it was offered.

“I thought getting the chance to design an escape room would be so cool,” McClanahan said. “I scheduled all my other classes around this one Fiat Lux.”

Beckmann said one goal of the class was to provide students with creative freedom and a platform to incorporate ancient Greek literature in educational tools.

She added that in fields such as classics, there is space to reinterpret material for a contemporary audience. She hopes students recognize that their education matters, and they can connect with the world outside of the classroom – including ancient civilizations.

“The university is like a bubble sometimes,” Beckmann said. “We need to break that bubble.”