The other week, I was asked to be part of a panel discussion on alternative transportation as part of the Climate Stewards training classes. It turned out to be more a series of presentations/lectures with Q&A than a panel discussion which was just fine with me*. Besides presenting my transportation planning focused website(s), I tried to address the guiding questions presented to the panel: What resources are available for alternative transportation?, what obstacles keep people from using alternative transportation?, and what can Climate Stewards do to encourage more people to use alternative transit?.

My answer to that last question was simple: use it, use it, use it! You can't promote public transit, advocate for public transit, or help shape public transit without knowing first hand how it works. Well, a week or so later, one of the climate stewards that attended the panel discussion pulled me aside at the Beat the Heat meeting to tell me about his first local public transit experience. He told me he rode the bus just to ride the bus simply because of the suggestion I made. Hearing this really made me understand the influence one person who believes in a cause can have.

After a couple of weeks of planning and getting schedules to work, my friend River and I headed out to the Anacortes Home Education Partnership to do a presentation on his veggie oil fueled car*. The students are currently involved in a "unit" on alternative energy. I remember the questions and confusion I had when I first heard about veggie fueled car, so I was glad for the opportunity to help clarify and educate to a group supposedly interested.

Considering the class was comprised of just 6 or 7 middle schoolers, I think the presentation went as well as can be expected. There were some good questions and I think the kids got the idea. We had some hands-on demonstrations and some in-class "lecture" time. Seeing the alternative classroom environment that the AHEP embodies was also educational for me. In response to my brief recounting of how it went to the classroom teacher (who was absent that day), I was told that I would never make it as a middle school teacher. I never had any doubt about that. But an occasional guest lecture is within my grasp.