For one day, science at Willis Junior High School involved hip-hop dancing, booming special effects and an assistant principal being flung into a giant cream pie.

The demonstration by a traveling group of performers, FMA Live, tackled Sir Isaac Newton's three laws of motion with props such as Velcro jumpsuits, inflated sumo wrestler costumes and water-propelled race cars. Students followed the 45-minute show like they were at a rock concert.

"It's an entertaining aspect to learning," Angel Guardado, a 14-year-old eighth-grader, said after the show.

The performance covered Newton's laws of motion: inertia, force and action-reaction.

To demonstrate the first law, performers took two student volunteers, Jake Ryan and Alan Gonzalez, dressed them in Velcro jumpsuits and propelled them against a Velcro wall. The students stuck to the wall, illustrating how inertia works in the real world.

For the next law, performers asked another student volunteer, Maya Alvarado, to kick a soccer ball into a goal. She succeeded by kicking the ball lightly. Performers then gave her a larger ball, which she had to kick harder and apply more force to, in order to get it into the goal. Eventually, the ball was so big that Maya couldn't exert enough force to move it.

The law they were illustrating was force equals mass times acceleration.

Bryce Bartley, an eighth-grade science teacher, and Robert Montano, a seventh- and eighth-grade math teacher, dressed in sumo wrestler costumes and also demonstrated the law by trying to topple the other. Only the teacher who took a running start could generate enough force to push down the mass of the other wrestler.

The third law, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, was demonstrated by a water-gas race car. By stepping on a pedal that released steam, the car was propelled forward. The cars were driven by Ciara Madril and Soledad Duenas, both eighth-graders.

The performers combined the three laws with the help of Assistant Principal Jeff Delp, who was placed in a hover chair and propelled into a giant cream pie.

FMA Live was created in 2004 by Honeywell and NASA. Their goal was to interest more students in science, technology, engineering and math by showing them real-world applications for theories that go beyond textbooks.

Jobs in those fields are expected to grow five times faster than other fields over the next decade, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

This is the third time FMA Live has performed at Willis Junior High.

Principal Paul Bollard said he thinks the show is a good chance to teach science to students who otherwise might tune out.

"You'd be surprised how much they get because of the hip-hop rap," Bollard said.

He likened it to the Schoolhouse Rock series he grew up hearing and its "Conjunction Junction" song. FMA Live is the modern equivalent, Bollard said.

"It's a good tool for kids, and it's one thing they relate to," he said. "It's at their level."