(Unedited) Podcast Transcript 511: Educating the Next Generation of Transit Riders
December 4, 2024
This week we’re at Mpact in Philadelphia chatting with King County Metro’s Rachel DeCordoba about her work educating the next generation of transit riders with the agency’s youth mobility program. She chats about transit education and curriculum and the importance of learning with peers.
You can listen to this episode at Streetsblog USA or find it in our hosting archive.
Below is a full unedited AI generated transcript of the episode:
[00:02:43] Jeff Wood: Rachel DeCordoba. Welcome to the Talking Headways podcast. [00:02:49] Rachel DeCordoba: Thank you so much for having me. [00:02:50] Jeff Wood: Yeah. Well, before we get started, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? [00:02:53] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, definitely. So I work for King County Metro, the largest transit agency in the Northwestern U. S. and we serve King County, Washington. [00:03:02] Including the greater Seattle area, and I’m a program manager who works on the youth mobility program within our agency, which I’m excited to chat with you more about. [00:03:12] Rachel DeCordoba 2: Yeah, [00:03:13] Rachel DeCordoba: I’ve been there for almost a couple of years now. I came originally from a. Sustainability and climate background, but have always been a big transit advocate and transit user. [00:03:25] So this has been a wonderful role to get to grow in. I grew up in Seattle riding transit. I had parents who worked two different shifts in downtown Seattle. So I took the commuter bus home with my dad each day and had my two quarters to drop into the fare box as we rode the bus together each afternoon. [00:03:43] So that kind of started my love of transit. Continued to rely on it as a teenager and now as a adult who commutes myself. [00:03:50] Jeff Wood: So how did you make that transition from being like a writer at a young age and deciding that, okay, I need to work in this space or need to think about this more from like a public policy perspective? [00:04:00] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, I think as I grew older, when I was a teenager and Was gaining more of a sense of independence and needing to get around on my own. Really, transit was my main option. I didn’t get a driver’s license until I was in my 20s. So, that proved to me the importance and the necessity of having access to that service myself. [00:04:21] And I was seeing that same need from a lot of my peers. I did take more of a sustainability and climate Path in college and beyond initially, but I did work for some time in public engagement consulting, including on some transit projects, which was an exciting way to kind of dip my toes into the engagement and policy side of transportation. [00:04:46] And through those experiences, being able to talk with folks who would be directly impacted by system expansion projects or by reroutes near their home, that gave me more perspective on different opportunities in this space. And when I was able to have an opportunity to pursue a role that combined both transit and working with young people, it was a perfect fit. [00:05:08] Jeff Wood: Yeah. So what brought you to working with young people specifically? I mean, that’s just an interesting topic. And one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on is because it’s something that I feel like isn’t explored as much in the space. [00:05:18] Rachel DeCordoba: Definitely. Yeah. Young people. I mean, we say often it’s the next generation of transit riders, right? [00:05:23] But I think also it is the current generation of transit riders in a lot of ways, our system and the services that we offer. cater to a variety of generations and audiences, but especially for young people, like I was mentioning earlier, it might be their only option to get around or one of the best options, especially as they’re gaining a sense of independence. [00:05:43] So the insights and perspective and feedback that young folks are able to share is just so invaluable and contains a lot of perspectives that folks who work for an agency may not consider day to day. It’s also just a very fun. Space to work in the creativity and the imagination of young folks is so exciting to get to be around. [00:06:05] Jeff Wood: What are some of the things that they share? Like, what are some of the experiences that young people have on transit? It might be different than say, adults going to work or going to entertainment or whatever it might be. [00:06:16] Rachel DeCordoba: Definitely. One of the biggest themes that I think has resonated with me over the past couple of years is the concept of trying something maybe new or unfamiliar with Peers and the importance of trying that with people who you know well and feel comfortable around. [00:06:33] And I’ll say I don’t think that’s unique to young people. I think that’s true for probably every generation. If you’re trying something that you’re new or unfamiliar with, it’s a lot easier to do that when you have folks alongside you, your friends or your peers. But that’s something that we hear quite a bit from students and young folks, especially if they haven’t taken transit before, or they may not know how to ride the bus. [00:06:55] Being able to dip that toe into that water with their friends and do that together makes it a much more positive experience, a more welcoming experience, and much more approachable overall. [00:07:05] Jeff Wood: Yeah, that’s interesting. I mean, I don’t think about riding transit with my friends too much because it’s usually with, it’s family, but it’s interesting to think about, like, what kids get up to when you’re on, like, the bus or the train, or like, I can remember from college when you’re with all your friends going to 6th Street or something in Austin, like, hanging out and whatever. [00:07:21] Yeah. Well, so I’m interested too, what are some of the like characteristics of these young writers? Like, what are they usually taking the bus or the train to get to? And what might be some of the differences between how they use the system and how, you know, other folks might use the system? [00:07:37] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, so for context, King County is a very large place. [00:07:42] I think if King County were to be a state, I think there would be 15 states, we would individually be larger than so we have 19 public school districts over 300, 000 K through 12 students in our county. And so all that being said, there is a vast variety of different experiences, even among the young generation across the county. [00:08:02] And so, for a lot of students. They take transit to and from school. That’s part of their, their daily commute, so to speak. That was how I got to and from school, going to high school in Seattle. And that’s a common experience for a lot of folks, but it depends on where students live in our county. That may not be as much of an option for them for a variety of reasons. [00:08:23] So we also hear a lot of taking transit to social events and activities. Whether that is an after school activity like sports practice or theater practice, or just going to hang out with friends. We also hear about students and young folks taking transit to care for others. Maybe that is a sibling or an older relative or a family member. [00:08:45] So it may not be quite as much of the Monday through Friday daily commute for adults, but it’s also, you know, students go to work and take transit to work frequently as well. It just may look a little bit different than the 9 to 5 sort of cadence. [00:08:58] Jeff Wood: Yeah, it’s interesting to think about that care infrastructure from that perspective of kids taking care of kids or even their parents or, you know, having to take care of errands or whatever it might be, because you don’t really, I mean, I wouldn’t really think of that as being one of the main objectives of them taking transit. [00:09:12] Usually it’s just school. [00:09:13] Rachel DeCordoba: Sure. Yeah. And I wouldn’t say it’s maybe one of the most common uses for transit for young people, but it’s something we certainly hear about and maybe haven’t considered as much in some of our historical messaging or ways we just think about making service work best for young folks. [00:09:28] Jeff Wood: We recently chatted with Ana Ziverts about her book about focusing on folks who can’t drive and their need for access. And I found that the stats really interesting, you know, something about 30 percent of people don’t actually drive or use a car. And she’s mentioned something interesting about leaders thinking about youth and why sometimes they kind of feel like they say they don’t matter or they’re not part of the larger group they’re trying to cater to. [00:09:51] I’m wondering where that kind of attitude comes from generally, because it’s frustrating because obviously. They don’t have a car. They don’t have a means of transportation other than maybe bikes or scooters or whatever else. It may be like, why would you not take them as seriously? Or why would you not, you know, consider their needs when you’re thinking about a transportation system? [00:10:08] Rachel DeCordoba: That’s a great question. Um, shout out to on a what a fantastic book. And I was lucky to go listen to one of the talks she gave a few months ago, sharing some of those anecdotes and stories. Super impactful. And Rings very true. That’s a great question. Why folks with power and in leadership may not want to, or just don’t listen to young people. [00:10:29] I think it could be a number of reasons, especially for folks who aren’t of voting age. Certain decisions are made on the ballot. And if a young, um, person doesn’t have that ability to vote, that may be a factor. I think also, too, sometimes young people are kind of pushed together as a monolith in folks minds who are in decision making roles. [00:10:55] Young people think this, they do this. And in my experience, just like people of any age, young folks have a wide variety of experiences and perspectives and viewpoints. And That’s complex, and it takes more effort to really engage with a wide variety of youth. It takes more time, and it takes more energy to understand that wide variety of perspectives. [00:11:20] And that time and that energy is something that some folks may not want to invest in a decision or in a larger process. And I think, too, sometimes young people are, in some instances, certainly not in all, learning how to use their voice, the best channels to advocate for what they need and what their peers need. [00:11:38] So, something that we try to do in our youth mobility program is share that information and resources for how. Young folks can best share their ideas with either its leadership directly or with a transit agency in order to Get those ideas to the folks who can implement them. [00:11:56] Jeff Wood: What’s the best way for the engagement to happen? [00:11:59] What’s the best Avenue? Obviously you said people have different ways of using the system and understanding. It’s not a monolith obviously So, how do you reach out to the folks in the different ways that they interact with each other or the different ways that they? can be accessed [00:12:12] Rachel DeCordoba: A number of ways, so, for example, 1 of the activities that we do within our program is a classroom transit education curriculum. [00:12:19] So we work with a fantastic team to go out into classrooms and teach information about how to use our system about how to ride, right? As we say, and about a number of issues that. Are adjacent to how to use our system, like sustainability or accessibility, or the role that transit plays in a greater community. [00:12:39] And when we are out doing that direct engagement with students, we also touch on, you know, we have whether it’s an online comment form, or a phone number that you can call not only if you have concerns about something, but if you want to give any sort of feedback. Ensuring that we’re clear about what those channels are, but also being really clear about the fact that we take that feedback and we share how we use it, how we maybe code it or share it with people who can address that situation directly. [00:13:07] And sometimes we hear feedback from those young folks that they didn’t think that comment would go anywhere. They didn’t know that channel existed. So that’s 1 way that we work directly with youth to make sure they know how they can make their voices heard. [00:13:21] Jeff Wood: From the curriculum standpoint, I watched a couple of the YouTube videos. [00:13:24] It’s age appropriate to, or like age specific. It seemed like there was some for younger children and then there was some for older folks as well. [00:13:31] Rachel DeCordoba: Exactly. Yeah. So we currently, we recently wrapped up a pilot and we’re back out in schools this fall. Our curriculum contains three different modules. For two different age groups. [00:13:41] So there’s a version for grades 2 through 5 and a version for grades 6 through 12. We do want to reach students at multiple stages throughout their schooling. And to your point, yeah, that’s done with different types of language, different types of activities. [00:13:56] Jeff Wood: And how does the education, once it happens, like, how does that affect, like, how older adults use the system too? [00:14:02] Like, are the kids going home and then telling their parents about, you know, what they learned and then maybe, like, influencing some of their decisions as well? [00:14:09] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, that’s been one of the most exciting things with the feedback that we’ve gotten so far. Is yes, we know that the students themselves now understand how to plan a trip or how to board the bus or what’s expected of them when they’re writing. [00:14:24] But we’ve heard great feedback from them and from their teachers saying, you know, they and their family were able to take a trip to a local attraction together for the 1st time using transit because now they all know how to plan a trip. We hear of students bringing this information back. To their parents and now having a way to get around and their parents, not having to drive them or drop them off to activities. [00:14:47] So, even though we’re talking directly with young people, it definitely radiates out to the folks in their lives and kind of act as transit ambassadors in a way. [00:14:56] Jeff Wood: King County Metro is an agency. There’s a lot of different agencies in the region. How do you coordinate the youth outreach throughout agencies? [00:15:03] Because it’s obviously, you know, there’s a lot of boundaries that people cross when they take a system, especially in the area that you live. [00:15:11] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah. So in the Puget Sound area, we are so lucky to be one of many different agencies serving the region. And yes, to your point, there’s a lot of coordination that. [00:15:21] Comes into play, not only with educating young people on how to use the system, but also on policy elements, such as what we term free youth transit pass or the fact that all youth 18 and younger ride transit for free throughout the state of Washington. So we have some fantastic partners working at agencies adjacent to us, such as community transit, sound transit, Pierce transit, all have staff who are implementing their own transit education curriculums. [00:15:51] We learn from each other. It’s been such a great experience to share lessons learned what’s worked. Well, what hasn’t we all take a little bit of a different strategy of how we go into classrooms or which schools we go in or what ages, but it is a similar strategy of starting with transit basics and moving into other subjects that students and teachers want to know about. [00:16:14] Jeff Wood: What have you learned from those other agencies? [00:16:16] Rachel DeCordoba: One of the things I’m really excited about and that I hope we can implement soon is bringing operators into classrooms. That’s something that our neighbors in community transit are doing right now with great success. And that’s feedback we’ve heard really from everyone, students, parents, educators, and operators themselves when we chat with our operators, is a desire for more opportunities to have students. [00:16:38] Students and operators or bus drivers have meet and greets or a chance to communicate outside of the environment of just boarding or deboarding a bus. And so to have an operator in a classroom sharing their experience, teaching something or just being there to chat is a great way to break down that barrier, build community on the bus and really stick, I think, in a young person’s mind is a good memory. [00:17:02] Jeff Wood: How do the kids react to that? [00:17:04] Rachel DeCordoba: Well, what we’ve heard from our partners, uh, but community transit is just a lot of fun. I think being had in our youth mobility program at King County Metro, we also host internships for students. And in summer of 2023, in our high school youth transit equity internship, we brought in some light duty operators who work as some safe ambassadors on our system, but we brought them in for kind of a Q and a with an operator with high schoolers and the students absolutely loved it. [00:17:33] We had some great operators in the room who were extremely funny and approachable and friendly, and it was the perfect example of just kind of bantering back and forth and a positive experience for everyone. [00:17:45] Jeff Wood: Yeah, that sounds really fun. I also am thinking back to reading this book to my daughter, which is like, Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, and so, uh, which is a really fun book for kids, but also it’s like a really kind of good introduction to, you know, a profession that can be had or just, you know, a funny anecdote. [00:18:03] So what kind of impact have you all had on the youth ridership or is there any metrics that you use to like figure out what the impact is? [00:18:10] Rachel DeCordoba: That’s a great question. So now that we’re heading kind of out of the pilot phase specifically for our transit education curriculum and are expanding that into more schools and more subjects in the coming years, we are also planning on expanding our evaluation strategy. [00:18:27] So, essentially, a lot of that comes through surveys that students take after they receive a workshop, or sometimes that teachers will take on behalf of their students if they’re much younger. Preliminary feedback from the pilot round had students sharing with us that they really valued the information that we provided. [00:18:45] We’re able to share with them, especially around transit basics. I think if they hadn’t had exposure to the system at all before being able to experience that in a more structured classroom setting worked well for a lot of folks. And then hearing from educators to oftentimes the teachers themselves weren’t aware of this. [00:19:04] Transit services in the area, so a lot of great positive qualitative feedback from that pilot phase. And as we head into the next couple of years, we’re excited to get more quantitative feedback about how folks are being receptive to the information that we’re sharing. [00:19:19] Jeff Wood: Is your position rare in agencies around the country? [00:19:23] Rachel DeCordoba: In a nutshell, I think my short answer would be yes. I am so lucky to be able to do this work full time. This work meaning a combination of our curriculum and education, outreach related to free youth transit and other services, and then our internship programs as well. That being said, I think there are a lot of folks at agencies across the country doing this work. [00:19:48] They may not have the word youth in their title. Sometimes it’s work that’s done alongside a lot of other responsibilities. But I’m seeing more and more folks slowly over time and more agencies investing in similar positions, which is very exciting. [00:20:03] Jeff Wood: Would have been the impacts of the pandemic because, you know, a lot of kids were doing remote schooling. [00:20:08] Obviously, it had a massive effect on transit ridership. I’m curious what like that meant for the system for the program. What’s been happening because of that? [00:20:16] Rachel DeCordoba: A lot of impacts from the pandemic. Definitely. I could probably, you know, spend the better part of an hour going and taking a deeper dive into what those impacts have been. [00:20:26] I think 1, though, that I’ll focus on because it is really coming up in our work as we think about how we develop our curriculum in the future is just a sense of community or even lack thereof sometimes on the bus. So. We get feedback from operators as we chat with them about what would you like to tell kids about riding the bus? [00:20:50] And probably the most common piece of feedback is just say hi, and with that, don’t be afraid to ask for help. And speaking to that greater sense of community on the bus and, you know, related to transit in general, the pandemic came with such a sense of isolation, that building back up a sense of community. [00:21:12] It takes a lot of effort, but I think it’s so vital to not only the work we do, the world at large as well. [00:21:19] Jeff Wood: What surprises you the most about this work? [00:21:21] Rachel DeCordoba: One of the things that surprises me the most is how quickly things can change. And what I mean by that is, You know, we may undertake one particular effort to gather feedback on a specific question from a group of young people, and a year or two later, their answers may be completely different. [00:21:40] And again, you know, youth are not a monolith. Answers will be different at any given point, but. Things change so quickly, culture in schools, trends on social media, if we’re talking about marketing campaigns that we’re putting together, that it really speaks to the importance of empowering young people and ensuring that we have constant channels of communication, not just discrete efforts here and there to gather feedback. [00:22:10] Jeff Wood: There’s been a lot of discussion lately in the media and articles like Slade and the Atlantic and others talking about walking and biking and taking transit to school and how it’s gone down a lot in the last 50 years or so. I myself walked to school, biked to school, took the school bus the first couple of years of high school, but it’s kind of been dissipating. [00:22:29] And I’m wondering like what kind of that trend is in the Seattle region, or if it’s something that you all are concerned Something that is mentioned in articles a lot is being driven to school and that being a congestion issue, that being, you know, also it’s an impact on children’s minds as well. I mean, the ability to read a map changes if you’re sitting in the back of a car for your, most of your young life. [00:22:49] And so I’m wondering how you all kind of consider that change that’s been happening over time. [00:22:54] Rachel DeCordoba: Definitely, and I think that is something that’s happening in our area as well, bringing it back to the theme earlier of partnership and coordination and collaboration. We’re so lucky to live in a region that has so many great organizations and groups doing youth education and outreach for a variety of mobility options. [00:23:14] So we, under our youth mobility program. You know, we focus on transit, but certainly within the context of other modes as well. But then we have folks working on safe routes to school programs. We have folks working on specifically bicycle education for young people. And I think being able to paint that more holistic landscape of there are many different ways to get from point A to point B. [00:23:37] You can combine them, you can switch them up, is so vital. I think for a lot of folks, depending on where a young person lives in the county, they might not even consider certain modes of transportation for getting where they need to go. So just having exposure is a great first step. [00:23:54] Jeff Wood: I mean, along those same lines, I’m interested in the connections between other agencies, maybe, or other things that happen, like traffic safety, for example. [00:24:02] So you have, you know, obviously around schools, it’s a big problem in the United States today. We have 40, 000 people killed on the roads every year. You know, young people seem a little bit more vulnerable from that perspective too. So the built environment as it stands around picking kids up at the bus stop or whether dropping them off, it extends past just the transportation of the bus to other realms as well, I imagine. [00:24:23] Rachel DeCordoba: Definitely. Yeah, safety doesn’t start or stop when you enter or leave the doors. So that’s something, for example, that even in our transit education curriculum, when we cover safety and best practices, you know, we cover that for on the bus as well as off the bus, at stops and near stops. [00:24:44] Jeff Wood: Is there a question that you would ask yourself, or is there a question you wish you were asked more? [00:24:49] Rachel DeCordoba: With regards to transit education specifically, I love sharing what we’re doing at our agency and chatting with peer agencies about educating students about transit. But for a lot of agencies, I think looking at this, this type of effort, it may seem like a very, very big lift. So I’d love to be asked how folks can do something similar, even if they don’t have the same level of resources. [00:25:21] Jeff Wood: And how would you answer that question that you asked yourself? [00:25:26] Rachel DeCordoba: One of my biggest pieces of advice for either the transit agency or any other organization or individual who wants to, you know, teach young people in their community about how to use transit, a couple things. Number one, really just focus on basics. [00:25:41] We’re so lucky in our curriculum that we get to touch a number of different topics and subjects. Thanks. And, you know, talk about sustainability and talk about larger community issues in relation to transit, but really just starting with the one on one for folks who may not have had exposure to that from friends or from family. [00:26:00] From friends or from family growing up, things like, how do I read a map to plan a trip? Or is there a digital tool or app that I can use to do that? If I need to pay, which luckily in the state of Washington, young folks don’t, how do I do that? So starting with the basics, starting with transit points, is really all you need to do to get going. [00:26:22] And then just piloting an effort in a smaller geographic area maybe, or just one school, or just one I attended a great Session earlier today where the presenter was saying. Putting a pilot into motion turns an unresolvable, hypothetical into an assessment of a real thing, which I think was so true in our experience. [00:26:43] We talked for a long time about what ifs, if we structured it this way, what might help students react. Being able to pilot something between 2022 and 2023 gave us an opportunity to react to real data and real reactions from students who are participating. So starting with the basics, And what I say is just prioritize, pilot, and proceed. [00:27:06] My two pieces of advice for a group who wants to tackle this with limited resources. So how do you get kids involved [00:27:12] Jeff Wood: with the program? How do you, like, bring them in? Or is there, like, a formal way or an informal way? [00:27:20] Rachel DeCordoba: One of the programs that we offer is internships for students across the region. So in 2022 and 2023 we hosted a youth transit equity internship for high schoolers and we had a cohort between the two years between about 12 and 15 students. [00:27:37] And these were summer internships just for two to three years. The goal here was to provide knowledge and information to the participants around transit and related topics so that they can become ambassadors and bring that information back to their communities. And of course, we also wanted to provide paid work experience. [00:27:57] So under that internship, students took on outreach projects, Helping us as an agency do outreach about free youth transit to their peers and community members. They were able to take workshops from community leaders on a variety of topics and go on field trips to some of our facilities within King County Metro, Transit Sound Transit, and they also painted a bus shelter mural. [00:28:24] It was a great way to integrate. integrate art into. So that’s an example of our high school internships. And we piloted a college internship last summer called Student Transit Champions, which had a focus on marketing and outreach for not only our free transit service, for not only our free transit programs, but also for other services that our agency. [00:28:50] So we’re excited to continue internships into 2025 and beyond. It’s a space where we get to really be creative and come up with programs for a variety of different agents that not only help us as an agency in the work that we do, but certainly Empowering our people to be ambassadors in their own communities. [00:29:12] Jeff Wood: And how did those free youth transit programs work? [00:29:15] Rachel DeCordoba: So transit is free for all youth, 18 and younger throughout the state of Washington, including agencies in our region. And our youth mobility program does a lot of outreach in the community to first and foremost, ensure that everyone knows you thrive for free. [00:29:32] This program has been in place for over a couple of years now. And so we’re out at community events, partnering with community based organizations, certainly out in schools as well. And also on social media, doing some marketing campaigns to spread the word and, you know, pair some information about how to use a navigator system without [00:29:55] Jeff Wood: Is social media hard? [00:29:56] I mean, I, I know it’s hard because it’s trying to reach out to people and there’s so many different avenues now. It’s not as centralized as it used to be. So like how, how easy or hard is it to like reach out to people? I imagine it’s hard actually, generally. How hard is it? [00:30:11] Rachel DeCordoba: I would agree. Social media can be very challenging. [00:30:14] And we’re So fortunate to work with fantastic partners and consultants who can support us in some of the very challenging work of identifying the best channels, the best timing with regards to marketing campaigns, but I think social media is one of the areas of my work where I’m most reminded that I’m no longer a youth. Very often. [00:30:38] But it’s so crucial to spreading the word to young people still. And one of the ways we’re excited to do that in the next couple of years is a community based social marketing campaign for free use transit. When we were piloting a variety of strategies in select schools, not only with advertisements on social media, but incentive campaigns, um, experiences like bringing out buses to schools and involving programming in creative way at schools. [00:31:09] Really kind of asking ourselves, we are able to really asking ourselves. If we put all these resources into reaching out to students out of school, really going all in on making sure they’re free, that they have the resources they need to share that information with their peers, try out transit, understand why it’s important. [00:31:33] Basically, the question is, what will come out of that? So we’re piloting that in the next couple of years, and we’re excited to see what needs to change. [00:31:43] Jeff Wood: What would be the best result? [00:31:45] Rachel DeCordoba: The best result coming out of that, it’s really exciting to imagine, I think, a community of students who not only understand their mobility options, whether that is transit or something else, to get where they need to go, but to fully feel empowered to share that information with their friends. [00:32:01] To really have transit or, you know, modes other than driving alone, even more, and frankly be cool to take to and from school in other areas. We heard from one of our Interns last summer that when a student gets their driver’s license, typically, sometimes in high school, it is very cool to shake your keys on your lanyard as you go through the halls to let everyone know that you have access to a vehicle now. [00:32:27] And we were talking about how cool would it be if that was the same for the bus pass or, you know, there was some way to make transit as cool, whether that is on a lanyard or something else. So making transit cool, I think it is for you, but, and I think a lot of students think it is as well. [00:32:44] Jeff Wood: Yeah. I think the perception has changed a lot. [00:32:46] I think that there’s more folks out there like giving it a positive reputation and seeing it for the value that it brings from a climate and a transportation perspective. So, where can folks find out more about this information, or where can they find out more about the curriculum? [00:33:00] Rachel DeCordoba: You can take a look at all of our curriculum materials and resources at kingcounty. [00:33:06] gov slash metro slash transit education, and there you’ll find links to each of our three modules, and each of those has a pdf of a curriculum guide and activities for students. As well as PowerPoints and videos of recorded PowerPoints as well. And we really encourage everyone at an agency and organization as an educator, as an individual to take these materials and please feel free to use them however you like in your own communities, modify them, pull inspiration from them, print them out if you like, sharing what we’ve created. [00:33:43] Jeff Wood: Where can folks find you if you wish to be found? [00:33:46] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, you guys can find me on LinkedIn and can reach out any time. Happy to chat if you are thinking of trying something similar. Happy to chat with anyone who wants to. [00:33:57] Jeff Wood: Awesome. You’re on a panel with other folks here at MPACT. Obviously, you do this work in King County, but there’s other folks around the country that do this work as well. [00:34:05] Rachel DeCordoba: Yeah, I’m very excited to be on a panel with a couple different folks. Teresa Nix from MOVE Minnesota is such a champion for student education with transit. We originally met through the conference a little over a year ago talking about youth transit education. Since then have swapped since learned materials learned from each other. [00:34:30] So it’s exciting to get to speak to our respective work together here at impact. And then Asher student locally from Pennsylvania will be speaking on the panel as well. It’ll be great to have his. Perspective as someone who has recently graduated from high school on the panel and speaking directly to this topic, too. [00:34:48] You know, we do a lot of this programming and this work through our agency and other agencies that we partner and work with But it truly is the young people and the students in our region the perspectives. They bring the information that they share And the decisions that they make every day, that’s what’s driving this work forward. [00:35:07] So just an immense gratitude to all the young people in the King County region and beyond for really being the ones to champion trans identification. [00:35:17] Jeff Wood: Awesome. Well, Rachel, thanks for joining us. We really appreciate your time. [00:35:19] Rachel DeCordoba: so much for having me.
