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Collaborative escape room one of the highlights of Monmouth College's SOFIA projects

by Barry McNamara

Monmouth, Ill. (08/23/2024) — Without the "fire triangle," there's really no story.

That was one of the many lessons from the recently completed three-week SOFIA program at Monmouth College. Forty-one Monmouth students participated in this year's SOFIA, which stands for Summer Opportunities for Intellectual Activity. That included first-year students, as well as returning students who served as project mentors.

This year, seven students from Illinois Central College, who were part of the Monmouth College-Illinois Central College STEM Summer Scholars Program, also participated in SOFIA.

Students enrolled in SOFIA this year included groups led by English professor David Wright and chemistry professor Audra Goach. Wright's students worked on creating the story for a mystery-based escape room, while Goach's group focused on providing forensic science clues.

Along the way, Wright's writing students learned a fire can only be created if all three sides of a triangle are present - fuel, oxygen and ignition. For example, fuel and oxygen alone don't start a fire. Similarly, a cohesive story is a triangle of its own, requiring setting, conflict and character.

For their escape room, the SOFIA students chose a Monmouth College setting and five characters, ignited by the conflict of a stolen set of historic bagpipes that needed to be found before a fictional matriculation ceremony could begin. The students were even able to pick the brain of local mystery writer Susan Van Kirk, attending a presentation about her latest book, Death in a Ghostly Hue.

The fully developed escape room was part of the students' final presentations, which were made just minutes before the freshmen in the groups attended Monmouth's actual matriculation ceremony, formally beginning their four-year undergraduate experience.

"The students picked up on the elements of mystery writing really quickly, and they had a blast creating characters," said Wright. "Once they settled on a Monmouth College-based theme, it really took off."

Added Goach: "When Professor Wright and I decided to build an escape room based on forensic science clues, I was very excited. As the time got closer, I thought, 'How will we accomplish this?' But with really energetic and smart students, we pulled it off."

As participants made their way through the escape room, they used clues such as shoe prints, fingerprints, hair, blood type and handwriting in order to open locks to help eliminate suspects.

"The students had to master these forensic science techniques in the weeks before in order to set this all up," said Goach. "It's been a fantastic experience that was worth the hard work."

More escapism

Wright's and Goach's students weren't the only groups involved with escapes. A virtual reality group led by physics professor Ashwani Kumar explored a variety of software and hardware such as Oculus Quest.

"Escapism is good," his students told the audience at one of the weekly colloquia, "but we can go too far."

Meanwhile, students led by biology professor James Godde followed the tourism slogan "Escape to Wisconsin," embarking on a 140-mile, five-day Wisconsin Way pilgrimage. The cyclists visited churches and historic sites, documented their travels and mapped their journey using GIS, a geographic information system that analyzes and displays geographically referenced information.

Collectively, the entire SOFIA contingent escaped Monmouth with a pair of road trips, taking in a Peoria Chiefs baseball game after the first week of the program and visiting the Illinois State Fair on the second weekend.

Other projects

A group of psychology students chose to focus on artificial intelligence and ethics, even asking AI to generate a potential research project for them to conduct before ultimately going in another direction. Along the way, they said they learned that AI is best viewed as "a tool, not a crutch," since it can, for instance, produce an entire poem, essay or paper that a student should write on their own.

Students with a political science focus chose to investigate an issue close to home with their project, titled "Environmental Policy and Politics: Warren County Lead Remediation Initiative." They learned more about the 10-year, $10 million project to replace an estimated 2,000 lead-based service lines, meeting some of the key players and exploring grant possibilities that would reduce the financial burden on local government. One of their takeaways was the need to focus on "trust, transparency and flexibility" in the project.

Two physics professors oversaw projects, including Chris Fasano, whose group addressed how nuclear science can help with environmental issues, such as hypoxic dead zones in the ocean, which have a reduced oxygen level. In such zones, most marine life either dies, or, if they are mobile such as fish, leave the area.

The group led by Fasano's colleague, Michael Solontoi, included ICC students. They did various projects related to space, starting with a campus mapping exercise that helped them visualize the true expansiveness of the solar system. The students also used college telescopes - and even their cell phones - to take pictures of space, exploring such heavenly bodies as the Pinwheel Galaxy, and Stephan's Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies.

Another ICC group, led by biology professor Kevin Baldwin, studied the behaviors and biomechanics of mega arthropods - dragonflies and damselflies - at the college's LeSuer Nature Preserve.

Other SOFIA groups used the C elegans roundworm to investigate the relationship between smell and brain health, learned how board games can help educate children, and studied inter-generational communication and gender norms.

Media Attachments

"Escapism is good, but we can go too far," warned one SOFIA group, which included returning student Lizzie Durfee '26, shown here helping a visitor to the Aug. 17 poster presentations.

While English professor David Wright's students were busy coming up with a mystery for an escape room, chemistry professor Audra Goach (right) led a group of students who produced the room's forensic clues, including student mentor Sawyer Day.

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