Saco School Holds End of Year Activities for 7th and 8th Graders

The 7th and 8th graders at Saco School spent the last week and a half of the school year taking part in a math-themed escape room. The students were put into three groups and tasked with finding hints and clues throughout a classroom set up by junior high math teachers Shyla Sunford and Kraig Nordahl. The yellow team was made up of Laytin Erickson, Keevan Malmend, and Chase Albus. The blue team featured Emerson Downing and Royce Strobbe, while the red team consisted of Nick Barnard and Jake Brown.

The teams would each take turns entering the escape room for a designated amount of time. Color-coded clues were hidden throughout the room for the teams to search for. When teams were not in the room, they were working on the questions from the clues that they had found. Some of the clues found required students to solve equations, graph lines, evaluate the order of operations expressions, work with interest on a bank account, find the probability of an event, and find the area and volume of geometric figures. There were also questions that the students could only answer while still in the escape room, using props scattered throughout the room. This involved the students finding information in math books, dictionaries, and an 8-number spinner needed for probability.

The yellow team found 17 of the 18 hidden clues and correctly answered 14 of the questions. Team blue found 16 out of 18 clues and were also able to answer 14 of them. The red team, Nick and Jake, were declared the champions as they edged out the other groups by answering 15 of the 17 clues they discovered. - Kraig Nordahl and Shyla Sunford.