Some teachers dress in outlandish costumes. Some bring their students outdoors. Others plan exotic field trips.

But Rohr Middle School's Daniel Dreyfuss might be the only teacher in Miami-Dade -- or anywhere, really -- who has encouraged his kids to turn his van into a psychedelic, mobile periodic table.

Last week, the bearded science teacher handed dozens of middle school students acrylic latex paint and demanded that they paint blue, green, yellow, orange and red squares all over his 1999 Plymouth Voyager.

But it's all for the sake of learning: What else would make studying the properties of niobium or silicon unforgettable, he asks.

``It's a secret plan to get everyone educated,'' Dreyfuss mused, as his students turned his van into a traveling science project.

Tzvi Rosenberg, 13, stood by the van as the class of teenage boys carefully painted black letters into every square of the periodic table covering the vehicle's doors, hood and roof. Of the 117 elements that currently make up the periodic table, they managed to squeeze in 75.

'`It's a metal that has a very high melting point, so engineering plants use it,'' Tzvi said, pointing at theNb he drew to represent niobium.

Thirteen-year-old Jason Brody barraged his teacher with probing questions.

``You're actually going to drive this around?''

``Yeah,'' Dreyfuss responded.

``I'd kill myself,'' Brody shot back, laughing.

But neither Dreyfuss nor his wife mind driving in a colorful, checkered collection of letters that causes passerbys to honk, shout and stare.

That's the point -- and they've gotten used to the idea. The teacher's Voyager is the second vehicle to have fallen victim to his education schemes. The first was a Nissan sedan students painted when he taught in Cincinnati.

The success of the first project, he said, inspired him to buy the white van five years ago, keeping in mind that he would continue the tradition when the vehicle reached its final stages of automotive life.

That point came earlier this year, when it reached 137,000 miles. The odd lesson plan of ``paint Mr. Dreyfuss' car'' appeared on his student's weekly work sheets soon thereafter.

``We thought it was awesome,'' recalled 13-year-old Sendy Gross as he used a black Sharpie pen to draw Mg near the van's rear fender. That stands for magnesium, a metal used to make glass, cement and electronic devices.

But few found the idea too surprising. Dreyfuss is, after all, the teacher who walked his seventh grade science students from school to a nearby Wal-Mart to help them understand the distance from Pluto to the sun. The basketball he left at the school, he said, represented the sun.

It's those kinds of quirky projects that make Dreyfuss' class -- otherwise known as Fussville -- a favorite for the school's 109 students.

``He totally understands kids. He's teaching for the right reasons,'' said Rabbi Ephraim Palgon, the school's principal. ``These kids will remember those elements forever.''