Getting a kick out of forensic science with Leicester City in the Community

We wanted to highlight this story with a hands-on activity that linked the Leicester City Football Club with real world chemistry, which lead to the idea of an educational escape room themed around a mystery taking place at the King Power Stadium, home of the LCFC. Thanks to funding from the Royal Society of Chemistry, this idea became reality!

The Game is Afoot

The central mystery of the LCFC Forensic Science Escape Room involves LCFC goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel discovering that his lucky gloves are missing and requiring a team of young and enthusiastic crime solvers to find out where they have gone and who has taken them! To do this, the teams need to work their way through a series of boxes containing puzzles that unlock the next boxes in the chain of evidence towards solving the mystery.

These activities were highly accessible for children and young people of all ages and abilities, with very little prior knowledge of chemistry or forensic chemistry required. As well as the classic algebra and pattern matching puzzles of classic escape rooms, this programme featured science focused challenges such as chemical analysis of mystery bottles found in the changing room, matching the spectrographs of different drink ingredients, and cracking hidden codes using the periodic table.

One thing that really stood out from the pupils’ feedback was that they all enjoyed different aspects of the escape room, whether it was the challenging maths puzzle, the hands-on chemical analysis, the tricky code breaking or that final reveal when they discover the culprit and find the gloves! It became clear that each part of the activity appealed to different members of the team, helping them to utilise their own strengths and learn from the strengths of others.

The Final Score

Throughout the first half of 2020, we delivered the LCFC Forensic Science Escape Room to 226 primary and secondary pupils from 11 schools across Leicester and Leicestershire, and thanks to the Royal Society of Chemistry funding, we were able to leave some of the physical resources with the schools so that they can reuse or remix the activities for their own use. We were also happy to be able to increase the pupils’ awareness and understanding of the diverse roles within forensic science and how their own enjoyment of the escape room puzzles may one day lead them into their own crime-solving career! As we start a new academic year, we hope that this project continues to develop and grow so that more and more people can get involved, leaving a learning legacy for many years to come!