The rain wasn't the only downpour Friday at Lakeview Academy in Gainesville.

Students in Hyuk Kim's ninth-grade class were testing water-powered rockets outside the school for a hands-on physics lesson.

"I think you should call NASA!" Kim called out to 16-year-old Will Kendrick, after a successful launch.
The sophomore grinned and nodded, before collecting his rocket as it parachuted to the ground.

Kim said the lesson was to encourage students to solve problems as well as have fun. It's part of his teaching philosophy.

"Teaching kids this way is a lot more fun than having me yap at them about a problem," he said.

"The kids get invested in it and it becomes more important to them."

For other annual projects, Kim has asked his classes to create an egg catapult and has also provided students with pine car derby materials and two balloons.

"They have to figure out how to make it propel," he said.

The students said they were excited to try out the water rockets, which were constructed using 2 liter bottles, fins and bike pumps.

"It was fun; I learned that my fins were too heavy," freshman Zach Montgomery said. "And longer fins does not mean it will be more stable."

His rocket traveled the farthest horizontally, he said.

Casandra Chesneau, 14, said she also enjoyed seeing the bottles take off.

"I actually tried throwing it off my deck to test it," she said.

Kim said he hopes the project will give students a better understanding of the space program and some of the challenges NASA employees face.

He added that in his class, problem solving and critical thinking are skills he hopes to pass to his students, as well as making them aware that it's OK to make mistakes sometimes.

After all, "learning is about the journey," he said.