That’s Sydney Fuller, a Gatewood Elementary student who’s about to join 5 Chief Sealth High School students – and some adult chaperones – on the bicycle ride of a lifetime. Under the title “An Inconvenient Ride,” they’re going to spend three weeks bicycling across the country (here’s their route) as an “environmental-awareness project,” returning home for a triumphant arrival on Earth Day — April 22nd — at a Benaroya Hall benefit for Project Earth Care, in which students from the schools already have been cooperating:

We told you about Project Earth Care six months ago, when Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai came to West Seattle’s Pelly Place Ravine to help the students plant trees. (See WSB video coverage here.) That’s just part of it – now comes “Inconvenient Ride.” The riders gathered at Sealth after school today to talk with WSB, just days before they fly back east to start pedaling westward (the ride officially starts in DC on Sunday). In addition to Sydney, participants are Alexandria “Ally” Stariha, Arielle Washington, Jacob Kenny, Justin Marshall, Tim Vincent, and Tyrone Hall-Deal – and they’ve been preparing in ways big and small:

One of their chaperones/drivers, Sealth teacher Gary Thomsen – who’s scheduled to head out with other drivers within a day or two so the support vehicles will be in DC by Sunday – says they’ll be riding in shifts. So who goes first, we asked?

For those of us who won’t be on the road with them, we asked their advice on best supporting the environmental cause:

You can find out more about “Inconvenient Ride” and the riders on their website.