Alva Review-Courier -

HASTINGS, Neb. (AP) — If you fail, try try again.

That was the mantra a group of young scientists repeated during three days of experiments at Hastings St. Cecilia Junior/Senior High School, the Hastings Tribune (http://bit.ly/2sNYW4N ) reported.

The students, who are going into grades four through seven next fall, took part in a three-day science camp hosted by science teacher Thera Jones.

"This is the second year I've done this," Jones said. "We're trying to push more of the academic side so kids have more to do in the summer than just sports."

The school also offered an art camp earlier in the summer.

For Jones, science is about having fun, experimenting, trying new things and learning from success and failure.

"They understand the failing thing," Jones said. "Then, they were giving me ideas like, 'Maybe we should use more of this.'"

During the camp, the students have made slime, bouncy balls, crystals, Coca-Cola slush, balloon rockets and much more.

Friday morning, the students used a mix of cornstarch, water, borax, glue and food coloring to create bouncy balls.

"It kind of feels like plastic and rubber," said 12-year-old Hannah Schneider. "It's weird."

The students started by mixing the cornstarch, glue and food coloring together into a ball before adding to the borax and water mix.

Then, they pulled the blobs out and started rolling them in their hands to make a ball.

"I'm not sure about my ball," said 11-year-old Max Rodriguez. "It still feels really gooey on the inside."

Some of the students at their blobs formed into balls almost instantly that they kept rolling in their hands to firm and harden.

Others like Max struggled with gooey sticky messes that for some became frustrating.

"If you fail, try try again," said Ryann Sabatka, 11. "Just keep doing it."

Soon a few of the students were singing "Just keep rolling. Just keep rolling," to the song "Just keep Swimming" from the Disney/Pixar movie "Finding Nemo."

Most of the students said they realized long before the third day how important patience is to everything they do in science.

"You have to wait because if you don't have patience it will all be messed up," Max said.

"And some experiments take longer than others," Ryann added.

Jones said learning patience and the success in failure is something she said will take these kids far.

"They end up doing a science fair for me someday and they get frustrated," she said. "It's like if it didn't work it might just need a little tweak. Sometimes you learn more from failure than you do success."

In addition to the bouncy balls, the students also did chromatography in which they colored coffee filters with a marker and put them into rubbing alcohol.

"When you put it in rubbing alcohol, it separates the colors from the black into blue, yellow and red," Ryann said.

"And if you get it out quicker, you actually get a rainbow," Jones said.

"That's because the colors don't completely separate," Hannah added.

This is the second year Hannah has participated in the science camp and she can't wait to come back for more.

"When I was little, I wanted to be a scientist," she said. "I've always had a lot of fun doing science."

Jones said she loves that excitement in her students.

"It's when they throw ideas at you, when they're excited some of them don't want to leave which is great," Jones said. "They're having fun and learning at the same time."

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Information from: Hastings Tribune, http://www.hastingstribune.com