Fostering Mathematical Proficiency in Higher Education Through Digital Escape Rooms: The ECO-WaterEnergy2Be Experience

Digital escape rooms have emerged as an innovative pedagogical approach, effectively combining gamification, narrative elements, and mathematical problemsolving to enhance student engagement and understanding in higher education (Ortiz, 2016). This paper presents ECO-WaterEnergy2Be, an advanced digital escape room developed within the Erasmus+ project MATH-DIGGER. Targeted at first-year university students enrolled in mathematics courses, the initiative aims to foster awareness of sustainability, promote green construction principles, and support the development of calculus-based problem-solving skills. A distinctive feature of ECO-WaterEnergy2Be is the integration of GeoGebra software, which facilitates the design of interactive mathematical activities that promote active learning and deeper conceptual understanding. The study outlines the theoretical framework informing the escape room's design, details its instructional content, and discusses its practical implementation in university settings. Furthermore, the paper examines educational outcomes based on preliminary pilot studies conducted within the established digital escape room framework. Initial findings indicate notable improvements in student motivation, comprehension, and appreciation of both environmental and mathematical dimensions of the tasks (Rasteiro, D. M. L. D. et al., 2025). These results underscore the potential of digital escape rooms to serve as engaging and effective pedagogical tools in advanced mathematics education.