LOS ANGELES – A Los Angeles high school science teacher was removed from his job for … teaching science.

Greg Schiller was placed on paid administrative leave by officials at Cortines School of Visual & Performing Arts after two of his students constructed science fair projects that could potentially launch a projectile, the Los Angeles Times reports.

“One project used compressed air to propel a small object but it was not connected to a source of air pressure, so it could not have been fired. (In 2012, President Obama tried out a more powerful air-pressure device at the White House Science Fair that could launch a marshmallow 175 feet.)

MORE NEWS: Know These Before Moving From Cyprus To The UK

“Another project used power from an AA battery to charge a tube surrounded by a coil. When the ninth-grader proposed it, Schiller told him to be more scientific, to construct and test different coils, and to draw graphs and conduct additional analysis …” according to the news site.

A school employee apparently reported the air pressured device to school officials as a potential weapon. Schiller, who teaches biology and psychology, was suspended in February for “supervising the building, research and development of imitation weapons,” Schiller’s union representative Roger Scott told the Times.

“As far as we can tell, he’s being punished for teaching science,” United Teachers Los Angeles union president Warren Fletcher said.

Students have rallied to save their teacher’s job, launching a petition drive and social media page dedicated to the effort.

Schiller has allegedly attempted to send lesson plans to substitutes covering his class to ensure students didn’t fall behind, but district officials told him to cut it out. Now, his students don’t do much of anything in his class.

“The class is now essentially a free period,” student Liana Kleinman, who is in Schiller’s psychology class, told the Times. “The sub does not have a psych background and can’t help us with the work.”

MORE NEWS: How to prepare for face-to-face classes

To say Schiller’s suspension seems like an overreaction would be a vast understatement. The school district won’t discuss the issue because it’s an “ongoing investigation,” which is fairly typical for government schools. There does, however, seem to be a more logical reason for Schiller’s punishment.

The Times reports the science teacher served as the union representative for his local campus and had been in a squabble with school officials over a new employment agreement.

With his suspension, he’s no longer a party to the negotiations, according to the news site.