Found this is also helpful from the docs. You aren’t limited to having the variable named after the partial:
http://guides.rubyonrails.org/layouts_and_rendering.html
To use a custom local variable name within the partial, specify the
:as option in the call to the partial:
<%= render :partial => "product", :collection => @products, :as => :item %>
With this change, you can access an instance of the @products collection as the item local variable within the partial.”