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Steamboat Springs — Like a bruised and battered quarterback after a hard-fought game, Soda Creek Elementary School fifth-grader Colton Harding gingerly eased himself into a gray, industrial-strength trash can full of water.

Last week's weather was certainly mild, but this quick dip wasn't to cool off.

Colton and his classmates, along with three other Soda Creek fifth-grade classes and four Steamboat Springs High School ninth-grade science classes, participated in the sixth annual Density Derby Thursday and Friday.

High school science teacher Cindy Gay started the derby; teacher Katie Foster has since taken over.

The premise of Density Derby is fairly simple: Ninth-grade students cement their newly acquired knowledge of density and other characteristics of matter by teaching and explaining it to visiting fifth-graders, who also have learned about density.

"I think density is a hard concept to understand, so this is a great way to learn it," Foster said of the derby. "I think they'll come away never forgetting it -- and they had fun."

Fun and learning?

"It's really fun because we got to see kids' densities and the different experiments that the high school kids do," fifth-grader Shelby Stover said. "They're really helping us with our density work."

Fifth-grade teacher John Belz agreed.

"This is great," Belz said. "We always look forward to this because it ties into what we're doing in the fifth grade."

The derby begins when a fifth- and ninth-grader are teamed up as partners. The ninth-grader, using a "textbook" he or she made about density, briefly explains some of the key concepts to the fifth-grader.

Next, the pairs look at different density stations set up around the classroom. Seeing how density and other characteristics of matter behave is more effective than reading about it in a book, Foster said.

"It's more sophisticated here," Belz said. "This is real hands-on, and they like hands-on-type stuff."

Then comes the derby section of Density Derby.

Each ninth-grader constructed an object designed to sink when placed in a container of water, remain at the bottom of the container and rise to the surface as close to 60 seconds after it sank as possible.

The students used a variety of materials, from Alka-Seltzer to sugar cubes to film canisters, plastic soda bottles, fishing line sinkers and more.

Peter Van Schaack's derby contraption took a little more than 59 seconds to rise to the surface -- one of top finishes in the derby.

"That was unbelievable!" shouted a fifth-grade spectator.

Ninth-grader Kelly Labor said it was fun to work with the fifth-graders.

"When I watched the way they reacted to different projects, it's kind of neat to see how interested they are," Kelly said.

The derby ended with an experiment to determine the densities of a fifth- and ninth-grade student. Wearing swimsuits, the volunteer students slowly lowered themselves into the water. The water that was displaced when the students got in the trash can was caught by a baby pool below it. The students measured the volume of water that was displaced and inserted that into an equation that determines density. The students' masses were measured with a scale and converted into grams. Using a calculator, the ninth-graders determine the density of each volunteer.

In the end, everyone had learned something new and hopefully had some fun doing it, Foster said.

"I learned a lot about volume and mass," fifth-grader Kaelen Gunderson said. "I learned about lab equations, and they're pretty interesting."

Even the teachers had fun.

"This is way more interesting than when I went to high school," Belz said.