Homeschool students Samantha Foster and Grant Foster won "best overall" in their category at the Space Day contest sponsored by Lockheed Martin Corporation. The object of Space Day is to proved opportunities for kids to explore math, science, technology, and engineering. Kids are given a choice of three options for their projects: Space Trek, which is making a journal describing an expedition in space; Galactic Gear, which is creating survival tools to use in space; and Extreme Explorers, which is developing a vehicle for space explorations.

Samantha, who is in the seventh grade, and Grant, who is in the fifth grade, chose the first option for their project and called it "2060 Chiron". They got the idea for their Space Trek journal entries by researching Lewis and Clark's 1803 journey to find the Northwest Passage. In the Fosters' stories, their fictional characters look for the Oort cloud, which is where many evolutionists believe comets originate. Samantha and Grant felt they could theorize that the Oort cloud does not exist similarly to how Lewis and Clark discovered that the Northwest Passage does not exist. Here is an excerpt from one of the stories by Samantha Foster:

In theory, comets are only supposed to live to be a few thousand years old. Again, in theory, the universe is supposed to be 4.8 billion years old. So if comets live only to be a few thousand years old and the universe is WAY older than that there should be no more comets right? Wrong. Scientists suggest that there is this cloud out in deep space called the Oort cloud. This cloud is supposed to spit out new comets every so often.

Instead, if thinking that there's something way out in deep space that nobody has ever seen spitting out new comets for us at just the right times, wouldn't it make more sense to think that the universe is less than 10,000 years old and that's why comets are still alive? I thought so.

"Evolutionists are people who believe the world has evolved," explains Grant, "and creationists believe that the world was made by an omnipotent God." The Fosters' project was able to show the difference in thinking by having two characters who get into some theological arguments which show the characters' opposing beliefs. Samantha and Grant found information for their project at Answers in Genesis, www.answersingenesis.com. Ken Ham, president of AiG, explains what a student should know about creationism and evolutionism:

When considering the topic of creation and evolution, students first have to realize that each side actually has the same facts. Both creationists and evolutionists live in the present world and they can study the same fossils and living things.

While both use the scientific processes of observation and repeatability, creationists begin with a Revelation-the Bible-concerning a study of events of the past, and evolutionists begin with beliefs about the past from those who weren't there. When students examine the events of the Bible concerning creation, the entrance of death and sin, the Flood and the Tower of Babel, they will find that observational science-geology, biology, anthropology, and so on-confirms the interpretation based on the Bible, and not the evolution interpretation.

The bottom line is: in whom do you place your trust? In the words of a God who was there at the beginning and who doesn't change or in the words of men who weren't there and whose theories change all the time?

For the last part of their project, the Fosters created a website, www.plomet.com, where they put all of their stories, journal entries, drawings, and information for the public to read. On the website, Samantha and Grant explain how they came up with its name. "We know you've probably never heard of a 'Plomet'. That's because we made it up. Chiron is a planet, a comet, or an asteroid. So, we combined some of the words to form the word Plomet!"

Senator John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth and co-chair of the council of advisors for Space Day, presented their award. "I didn't get to talk to him, but he talked to me-but I was too nervous to catch it," Grant relates. Samantha says that she was excited to have her shirt signed by Senator Glenn.

When asked about their future plans, Grant talks about flying airplanes. "The award ceremony took place at the New National Air and Space Museum. The jets were awesome-so I want to fly." Samantha loves writing and would either like to be a writer or a history teacher for high school or college students.

I would like to thank Grant and Samantha Foster, Ken Ham, and Mark Looy (Vice President-Ministry relations, Answers in Genesis) for the time taken in answering interview questions for this article. To find out more about Space Day and how you can participate, visit www.spaceday.org. Be sure to check out the Fosters' website at www.plomet.com. Congratulations to Samantha and Grant for a job well done!