IQALUIT - Elephants and polar bears live in very different worlds, but in Malaya Papatsie's imagination, they could very well be a single animal.

Grades 4 and 5 teacher Jasmine Gobelle, left, of Nakasuk School in Iqaluit, sits beside Malaya Papatsie, who holds illustrations of an elephant and a polar bear. Papatsie won a contest for designing an animal she dubbed a "polarphant," that combines elements of elephants and polar bears. - Jeanne Gagnon/NNSL photo

The Iqaluit Grade 4 student won the Wild Math and Science Animal Discovery Contest, a Scholastic Canada national competition where students had to design an animal and explain its habitat and characteristics. For her "polarphant" creation, she received a Canon digital camera valued at $500 and her class got a $100 Scholastic Canada gift certificate.

Papatsie, 10, said her animal was grey and had a trunk, but had a body like a polar bear. She has never seen either elephants or polar bears but both are her favourite animals so she thought the two might go well together, she added. She was excited to win.

"I was really happy," she said.

Her teacher, Jasmine Gobelle, said Papatsie kept smiling all day after learning she'd won. The Grades 4 and 5 teacher at Nakasuk School assigned the contest as a class exercise to her 20 students.

"At the time with science, we were doing animal habitat and it went well with our curriculum. It incorporated language arts, science and art," she said.

She described Papatsie's drawing as creative since she combined a southern animal with one living in the North.

"I am very proud of her," she said. "It was very creative and she worked hard on it. She's a hard worker in class. They were quite enthusiastic about the project. They all did a good job," she said. "The whole class was pretty excited with her receiving the camera and the prize because it's a contest across Canada and there are only 10 winners." Gobelle said she had found the contest online.

"If it's offered again, I will certainly have my students enter it again," she said.