WaterStar: Ecolab’s E3 Group

This is the latest in a series of posts highlighting people around the world who embody the ideals of the Clean and Conserve Education Program: making the world a safer and healthier place through water conservation and hygiene education. WaterStars will receive printed copies of each book as well as enamel WaterStar pins to recognize their work. Anyone who has used the Clean and Conserve materials is eligible for consideration to be a WaterStar award winner. Submit your story to learn more.

The Ecolab E3 group focuses on empowering, engaging, and energizing women E3 is an employee resource group at Ecolab focused on empowering, engaging, and energizing Ecolab to measurably accelerate the advancement of women leaders to drive business growth. E3 members can take advantage of networking events, professional development seminars, mentorship and programs to enhance our communities. Members are also encouraged to engage with E3 to get hands-on experience with project and program management. By connecting passionate employees with these opportunities, the community outreach committee within E3 was able to successfully initiate a program to support Project WET and utilize the Clean and Conserve Education materials in 2017.

So far, the group has held three successful events with one more planned with a local STEM magnet school later this year. One of the ways their work with Clean and Conserve is unique is their focus on partnering with nonprofits as well as local schools. Their first event, held at a local Boys and Girls Club, reached 60 students in grades three through six. Another event brought the Clean and Conserve materials to Greater Twin Cities United Way’s Action Day, sharing information and WaterStar tattoos with 120 students ages five to 15. Naturally, their Ecolab colleagues also benefit from the E3 group’s interest in water conservation and hygiene education. On the company’s Bring Your Child to Work day, the E3 group shared the “Blue Planet” and “Conserve Water” activities with 160 students, ages eight to 12.

E3 members taught kids at the Boys and Girls Club and at a United Way event about water conservation and hygiene We connected with the E3 group’s co-leads—Kaycee (Reynolds) Strewler, M.S., a Product Label Specialist with Ecolab’s Institutional Marketing department; Wendi Rodewald, a Senior Distribution Specialist with Ecolab’s Global Operations Supply Chain Logistics department; and Elizabeth McCall, M.Ch.E., a Lead Chemical Engineer with the Research and Development department—to find out how E3 is using Clean and Conserve and why:

Project WET Foundation (PWF): Why did you decide to seek out the Clean and Conserve resources to use with the group?

Ecolab’s E3 Group Co-leads (E3): The Clean and Conserve resources seem to align well with our vision for the E3 community outreach group by being both applicable to larger Ecolab business initiatives and also scalable across multiple E3 chapters. We appreciate the fact that the resources were developed through a partnership with Ecolab scientists and after reviewing the material, found that the modules were fun, interactive, and easy to teach. We knew these criteria would be essential as we broadened the scope of the program through increased material distribution while ensuring lesson retention by students. In addition, we knew that if volunteers enjoyed teaching the material, we could build a sustaining program that would encourage repeat participation.

PWF: What activities or resources have you found particularly useful and why?

One Clean and Conserve activity helps kids understand the healthy actions they can take to prevent illness E3: We love all of the activities - there are plenty of options to educate students of all age groups, group sizes, and activity levels. We found the estimation of water on the globe/beach ball exercise (Blue Planet) to be a fantastic, quick ice breaker that students spanning in ages from 8-13 enjoy. We also utilized the healthy personal hygiene exercise/human knot, a great, quick demonstration of the program in action, and the surface sanitation solutions/tag game, a fun, interactive game with students requiring little in the way of materials or set-up.

PWF: How do you see yourself using the materials in the future?

E3: Our goal as we build this program within our organization is to increase visibility and create something replicable/scalable. We plan to continue developing our partnership with the local Boys & Girls Club organization and STEM magnet schools. We will have a few planned events each year that will serve as the priority focus of the program but will also offer ongoing support as other groups within Ecolab seek to utilize the Clean and Conserve program in their outreach efforts.

The Clean and Conserve Education Program, developed through the partnership between the Project WET Foundation and Ecolab, includes lessons, activities and other learning resources for children and youth ages three through 18, as well as educators. Visit the Clean and Conserve page to learn more. Originally published in English, Clean and Conserve materials are also available in Mandarin, Spanish for Mexico, German, French for Canada and Portuguese for Brazil (French and Portuguese materials are available for download from the English-language page).