COMMENTS: Kind words from the classroom

We love sharing clean-water fun with students of all ages, and we're even more excited when classes share their experiences in return.

Eighth-grade teacher Rachel Smith received some of our coloring books, posters, and pencils last month, and this morning we smiled reading her email:

Thank you so much for all the wonderful classroom materials you gave me, my co-teacher, and all my students. They loved seeing the posters and getting a closer look at how everything works at a treatment plant. Many students are not capable of visualizing the amount of water that the plants treat everyday, but these materials were a great help to give them a better understanding. Now, I do not have students questioning if their water is clean or not, because they have tools to see and learn from.

I cannot express my gratitude of the gift you have given my current students and future students. I am very gratefully that you were able to put this all together for me.

Again, thank you for everything.

Rachel Smith
8th Grade Science
E.B. Frink Middle School

These materials and more are available in our Wally Warehouse, your go-to resource for sewer, water, and environmental education products from your Sewer District.

QUESTION: What would you like to see?

Our monthly email blast—environotes—has been around for several years in several forms. First, it was a limited distribution print newsletter, then an email newsletter, and now a collection of the month's social-media highlights from your Sewer District.

At one time, we focused on public-officials news, then shifted to Sewer District accomplishments, and most recently widened the view to promote customer-service oriented news and opportunities. Our current maillist includes about 1,100 names of officials, citizens, educators, residents, and other interested followers.

We'd like your feedback: What kind of news best suits this email newsletter format? Are you subscribed? Would you subscribe? Why or why not?

As our own social media efforts have grown, most of our conversation, news, announcements and alerts that were once shared via environotes have more frequently been posted on our Facebook page, Twitter account, and and here on our blog. With that in mind, is this communication venue still helpful? Necessary? How can it better serve you as customers and Northeast Ohio residents?

Leave you comments below to help us determine a direction for this environotes project in 2012.