This paper discusses the experience of promoting environmental conservation using both puppets and simple hands-on experiments for first-grade students in rural Southwestern Costa Rica. Twenty eight college students wrote puppet plays, designed and built the puppets and performed the plays as well as monitored the science experiments. The experiments attempted to illustrate certain natural phenomena related to the issues performed in the plays. A total of 334 seven-year-old students from 19 elementary schools participated in 2016 and 2017. College students recorded in a log their observations and responses from direct questions to children, based on a questionnaire. A linear regression analysis was used to establish correlations. The analysed data showed that children had a much better understanding about nature and the importance of protecting it after both the plays and the experiments were conducted in sequence.

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