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Steamboat Springs — Dark, ominous and foul-smelling liquids gurgled and boiled in test tubes throughout the room, evaporating and changing colors as the scientists toyed with the mysterious muck through a series of chemical transformations.

Garrett Pugh, with partner Grant Mader, peered into the boiling liquid.

"The smell of the isopropynol gives it away," he said. "And it won't light on fire, so we think there's water."

Mader and Pugh also have found copper, rocks, ink and pieces of a mass weight set in their sludge. How well they identify the various liquids and solids in the sludge also will determine their grade in Cindy Gay's freshman physical science class.

Students are allowed to use almost any method to determine what's in their mess - although Pugh said he would probably lose points if he attempted to taste the brown-green concoction.

The sludge project is more than an excuse to make things bubble. It's a test for students in Gay's classroom to identify liquids and solids they have used throughout the year by employing a series of tests and distillations.

"Say you're a rival restaurant to McDonald's, and you want to find out what's in their secret sauce," Gay said. In order to pull apart the ingredients, a chemist would need to use the same techniques used by the ninth-grade students in her class.

Gaven Van Pelt and Tanner Arroyo found isopropynol, baking soda, dirt, weights and sand in their sludge through the use of fractional distillation (boiling liquids out of the sludge, leaving the solids remaining), filters and an evaporation dish.

Once their hypotheses are complete, the students will make display boards to present to a panel of community members during a judging session Thursday.

The students will be judged on their presentation skills and their ability to determine what was in the sludge.