How to teach financial literacy with a Harry Potter-inspired virtual escape room

Publication date: November 11, 2020

by Snježana Damjanović, Code Week Leading Teacher in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Školski centar fra Martina Nedića, Orašje

A week before his birthday, Harry received a letter from his grandfather: “My dear Harry, …” 

This is how the virtual escape room, aiming to teach students about finance, begins, with a letter to Harry from his grandfather.

Financial literacy is a key life skill. But how much do today’s teenagers know about the value of money, the attitude towards money, savings and other financial concepts?

Is there a built relationship to money, or is there a gap between awareness and knowledge on the one hand, and financial responsibility on the other? The goal of my activity, which links finance, math, and coding, is to encourage students to think about the importance of financial literacy, and about its connection to everyday life.

As a start, students are tasked with entering the virtual escape room and solving puzzles from Grandpa’s letter to Harry online. If they complete all puzzles and crack the escape room, a gift will be revealed.

The escape room was created as a set of puzzles, which in addition to knowledge of financial concepts requires students’ attention and focus. To unlock the last part of the puzzle, students must calculate the amount of money Harry would receive after making a deposit. Through puzzles, pupils will find out what the terms of the term deposit are and thus learn about savings.

All students were thrilled. They solved the puzzles carefully and looked forward to finding the correct answer, which unlocked the next puzzle.

Some students admitted that they did not know how to solve some of the riddles, so they asked for help.

To complete the activity, they had to write the following text and formulas in Phyton.

Everyone could hardly wait to program in Phyton at the end and to welcome EU Code Week.

It’s time to grab a pen and some paper and embark on our thrilling adventure!

Would you like to implement the activities in your class? Find the solutions here.