A whale of a tale...

Students show off the blue whale they created in their gifted and talented program class. The whale will be on display Thursday at the Bennett Mountain High School gymnasium, which is the old Hacker Middle School annex.

It's a whale of a tale that teacher Dave Holland says is no ordinary fish story. Instead, it became a hands-on teaching tool for a select group of elementary school students in Mountain Home.

Last Wednesday, the students of Holland's gifted and talented program brought to "life" a full-sized replica of an adult blue whale.

Stretching the full length of the basketball court in the Bennett Mountain High School gymnasium, the homemade creation measures 70 feet in length with the back fins stretching 16 feet across. When fully inflated, it towers more than 10 feet in the air.

The project began a few weeks back when the students in Holland's accelerated academic program were working on converting ratios for various large-scale projects. Earlier studies required the 30 students in his class to create a 1:200 scale version of a sports complex.

But then his students wanted to build a full-scale, 1:1 ratio version of something big -- really big. That's when the whale idea started to surface, according to Holland.

"The kids asked, 'Let's do something fun,' " Holland said.

The timing also seemed right since his students, which range from fourth to sixth grade, were preparing for a science class that included a focus on whales.

Finding the plans were a snap, Holland said. He already had a set of blueprints that he picked up during a teacher's conference he had attended earlier this year. The plans were originally created by the Needham Science Center in Pennsylvania.

The school's inflatable creation is made from Visqueen -- long sheets of polyethylene plastic film just 6 millimeters thick. Using the super-sized sheets of plastic, it took a team of 30 students and five parent volunteers more than six class periods to cut out the plastic sheets.

They fashioned the whale's outer skin using nothing more than rulers, scissors and tape -- lots and lots of tape, Holland said. They put the finishes touches on their creation March 13.

It's all held together with "packing tape and love," he added.

Using nothing more than a standard box fan, it took roughly five minutes to bring the whale to life, which actually surprised Holland, who originally expected the process to take much longer. At the same time, he worried whether the seams would hold as the outer skin inflated.

As they stood next to their creation, just one thing remained: The whale needed a name. One student felt they should name it "Ironica," adding that it was ironic to create a blue whale out of black and white plastic, the teacher said.

Holland's students plan to finish the whale by reinforcing its seams with even more tape for good measure. It's expected to go on display during parent-teacher conferences at Hacker Middle School this Thursday, March 21.