Students will enter the project as makers, performers, and researchers by testing puppet techniques, responding to community-inspired story prompts, and launching a fast revision cycle. They will begin connecting audience engagement to real issues, practice team collaboration routines, and capture early evidence about what makes a puppet scene clear, meaningful, and worth revising.

Students will gather firsthand evidence from community partners and potential audiences, organize that evidence into patterns, test assumptions against what people actually said and did, and produce an evidence-based audience needs brief that will guide puppet story decisions in the next phase.

Students will generate multiple puppet show concepts from prior audience research, build low-fidelity scene and puppet prototypes, test them with peers and a community partner, and use two documented revision cycles to choose a direction that better serves a specific audience and issue.

Students will refine a tested puppet-and-script prototype, validate it with a representative audience, and present a concise evidence-based proof of how research, revision, and rehearsal choices improved audience understanding and engagement.

Students will present their revised community-issue puppet show to an authentic audience at The Great Noyo Puppet Festival, explain how research and revision shaped their artistic choices, and reflect on how their teamwork and performance decisions changed audience engagement from beginning to end.