It's wonderful combining science, research, reading, writing and art. An interdisciplinary approach really helped everyone. I am not a science subject naturalist and neither is the art teacher. Children quickly learned the art teacher could help them construct a model but they would have to research and find out exactly how the animal looked. I could help them locate information in books, but only if they could clearly explain what they needed.
Children love to know more about something than their teachers.
I don't think a child in the school will ever forget just how large a fifty foot whale really is. I'm also finding that more teachers are asking for literature with a science theme. Instead of children competing individually in a contest, children worked in special interest groups. They researched topics in the library, planned and conducted experiments, constructed displays, and then explained their results to interested children, teachers and parents. A whole committee of third graders will be glad to demonstrate and explain.