Like most of her classmates at Hueneme High School, senior Erica Fernandez will be taking her SATs on Saturday morning.

But unlike her friends, the 17-year-old senior will be taking her test in Des Moines, Iowa.

That's because Fernandez will be in the Hawkeye state to speak at the Iowa Heartland Presidential Forum on Saturday, when she will have the opportunity to ask one of the Democratic presidential candidates a question during the nationally televised event.

Fernandez, a member of the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, or CAUSE, is the youngest among the delegates chosen to participate in the event, said CAUSE senior organizer Beatriz Garcia.

Fernandez said she plans to pose a question concerning civil justice and the environment.

"I never imagined I would be going all the way to Iowa, because there were a lot of people who were nominated," Fernandez said Wednesday, a few hours before her midnight flight out of LAX. "I was very surprised and honored that I will be representing the community of Oxnard and the state of California."

Oxnard will open its City Council chambers at 10:30 a.m. Saturday to allow the public to watch Fernandez pose her question to one of the candidates. The forum will be televised at 11:30 a.m. on C-SPAN.

Fernandez, who has spent the past few days preparing for the event, said she will use her one minute to talk about her involvement with CAUSE and how several organizations fought successfully to prevent BHP Billiton's proposed liquefied natural gas facility off the coast of Ventura County.

She also wants to talk about how her passion for activism stems from her father, an immigrant farmworker with respiratory problems, and about her concerns that the LNG facility would have caused more pollution and directly affected low-income areas of the county.

"I want to tell them what we did to stop the building of the LNG facility and ask the candidate what they will propose to achieve a vision of equality and fairness for all people," Fernandez said. "I want to ask the candidate, What is your vision to make environmental equality and fairness for all?'"

Today, Fernandez will travel to Davenport, Iowa, for the Gamaliel International Leadership Assembly, where she will give a speech about her experience as a youth activist and organizer. Fernandez and about 50 members of youth groups throughout the country will also have a discussion with Michelle Obama, wife of Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama.

On Saturday, it's back to Des Moines, where Fernandez will go to a high school at 7 a.m. to take her SATs. Then it's off to the presidential forum.

"She is a real inspiration," Garcia said. "Whenever you sit around her, she has this energy that oozes out of her."