Traveling Environmental Festival--Educator Pages
- New Jersey Friend's of Clearwater (NJFC) Traveling Environmental Festival (TEF) is our key educational tool for children of all ages. While modeled after Clearwater's Classroom of the Waves, NJFC has adapted the concept to create the TEF, first presented in 1994.
- TEF brings the hands-on shipboard stations to the classroom and youth organizations at a fraction of the cost of the shipboard experience thereby enabling NJFC to reach a broader audience all year round. It is a self-contained, portable (stored in its own trailer) educational classroom that can be set up in an auditorium, classroom, or outdoor venue.
- TEF and its five stations and timeframe can be tailored to suit the targeted topic, audience, and the available teaching resources.
- Food Web/Chain
- Plankton Station
- Life in the Water
- Watershed Model—EnviroScape
- Water Testing
- While the TEF's target audience are grades 2 through 6, the NJFC educators—working with local curriculum advisors—have tailored the curriculum to accommodate older and younger audiences.
- In the sailing season, we use our sailboat, Adam Hyler, and augment its limited size by presenting at bay and riversides, such as Keyport and Red Bank or anywhere you choose.
Click to Download TEF Brochure
Click to Download TEF Page as PowerPoint Presentation
Click to Download Traveling Environmental Festival Curriculum
SAMPLE LESSON PLAN - Educator Pages
Orientation Session
- To understand the importance of water for survival
- To understand the many types of pollution, especially water pollution
- To introduce the concept of food chain/web
- To introduce the concept of the estuary ecosystem
- To identify the local estuary ecosystem, especially the target Raritan River system
- Entire class is assembled
- Q&A to elicit key concepts
- Establish concept of food chain/web
- Class is divided into three groups and sent to stations 1 and 2
- What is water? Why is it so important?
- What is pollution?
- How does it affect life forms?
- Samples of water pollutants
- Chart with food chain/food net
- Chart of estuary system life
- Maps of Monmouth County and environs with defined drainage/estuary systems
Traveling Environmental Festival (TEF)--Educator Pages
For more information on bringing the TEF into your School, Scout Troop, or Organization, please contact:
Ed Dlugosz - edlugosz@comcast.net
George Moffatt - gmoffattgt@aol.com
Please look at our brochures, PowerPoint presentation, lesson plans, or take an exciting, virtual tour at our eTEF link (Broadband service required). While our standard TEF is target for 2nd through 6th grades, all lessons can be tailored for your organization for grades 2-12.
Our eTEF, which closely mimics our live TEF, uses the music of our musical Friends of Clearwater--Pete Seeger, Bob Killian, Dan Einbender, Tom Chapin, Magpie, Rick Nestler and many others--to enhance and enrich the experience. The eTEF uses the music of these artists with their express permision and are documented in the document that can be found at the following link: Credits and Lyrics
[Note: You may need a downloadable application to display the Flash animation programming used in eTEF. A free trial version can be downloaded from the following link: Macromedia Flash Application
It is an Adobe product and is almost a necessity for any new website viewing. It is safe and from a reputable website.]
Recent TEF Successes -- 16 December 2007
MCFC volunteers have presented three successful Travelling Environmental Festival (TEF) events in late November 2007 and are scheduled for two more during December. They also marked an important precedent by collaborating with high school and college students to present TEF.
Our full day, four session event at Woodmere Elementary School, Eatontown NJ on November 19, brought fun and environmental awareness to over 80 children and numerous teachers. Veteran volunteer TEF Instructors were joined by Monmouth Regional HS students to present this TEF event. We had four MRHS Environmental Club members and their Advisor join us. They will again join us at the TEF to Eatontown's Meadowbrook Elementary School in the spring. We will to work with them water testing and stream cleanups in the Eatontown-Tinton Falls area.
On November 20th we presented TEF to 60 students at the Maple Place Elementary School in Oceanport where we teamed with Monmouth University's Community Water Watch (MUCWW). In the past, MCFC supported MUCWW's lake and stream cleanups.
On November 26th MCFC presented three TEF sessions to 90 fourth graders Union Beach Memorial School. At all three schools the principal is looking forward to having us back either next spring or next year. Our December TEF venues will be Atlantic Highlands, Highlands, and Red Bank elementary schools.
Student Ocean Advocates (SOA) are representatives of 8 high school environmental clubs who meet bi-monthly to discuss common issues and plan ways to advocate awareness. One of the approaches they've expressed is a desire to educate younger students. It is my hope that our renewed involvement in the COA-inspired SOA and the students desire to teach will yield additional student volunteers for TEF at their respective towns' elementary schools.
Despite the possibility of the student resources, we still need regular, additional MCFC volunteers to spearhead upcoming events.
TEF Outreach History--Educator Pages
| School | 13,000 Children |
| Children's Psychiatric Center CPC) High Point Elementary School | Morganville |
| Saint Dorothea's Harbor School | Eatontown |
| Bradley Beach Elementary School | Bradley Beach |
| Bangs Ave School | Asbury Park |
| Bradley School | Asbury Park |
| Neptune City Elementary | Neptune |
| Union Beach Memorial School | Union Beach |
| Long Branch Elementary School | Long Branch |
| Highlands Elementary | Highlands |
| New School Charter School | Marlboro |
| Cove Street School | Hazlet |
| Union Ave Middle School | Hazlet |
| Cleveland Elementary School | Englewood |
| Woodmere Elementary School | Eatontown |
| Meadowbrook Elementary School | Eatontown |
| Maple Place Elementary School | Oceanport |
| Wolf Hill Middle School | Oceanport |
| Manasquan Elementary School | Manasquan |
| Atlantic Highlands Elementary School | Atlantic Highlands |
| Conover Rd School | Colts Neck |
| Elberon & Lena Conrow Schools | Long Branch |
| Spruce Street School | Lakewood |
| Lincroft School | Middletown |
| Extracurricular & Youth Groups 10,000 Children | |
| R-FH HS EnviroPalooza | Rumson |
| Boy/Girl Scout Jamboree | Eatontown |
| Girl Scout Enviro Extravaganza | Camp Sacajawea |
| Atlantic Highlands Earth Day | Atlantic Highlands |
| Brookdale CC Justice Day | Lincroft, Middletown |
| Father Time Environmental Expo | Keansburg |
| Ocean Fun Day Marine Sciences Consortium | Sandy Hook |
| Unity Church by the Shore | Neptune |
| Academy of Allied Health & Sciences Environmental Day | Neptune |
| Wall HS Environmental Day | Wall Township |
| Festivals | 650,000 People |
| Annual Clearwater Festival '94-'00 | Sandy Hook |
| Annual Clearwater Festival '01-'07 | Asbury Park |
| Annual Clearwater Revival '94-'07 | Croton Point, NY |
Clearwater Environmental Education on Display at Whole Foods
13 Apr 2008 by Ed Dlugosz
Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater partnered with Whole Foods to demonstrate their popular TEF environmental education program at the Middletown Whole Foods Supermarket on Saturday, April 12 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Clearwater's Traveling Environmental Festival (TEF) is ready to bring your group an exciting, hands-on interdisciplinary educational program designed to demonstrate the interdependency of all plants and animals.
Our staff will guide students on a fascinating exploration of our environment, starting at the base of the food web with the plankton and culminating with humans.
Through hands-on interconnected stations--including plankton study, live exhibits aquarium, water chemistry, watershed model, creative dramatics, and music, the young mind will be brought to a deeper understanding of our need for clean, clear water.
The dependence of one species on another, the effect of human industry on our environment, and the role each of us plays in shaping the present and future through choices we make are the themes of our program.
TEF is MCFC's key educational tool for children of all ages. While the TEF's target audience are grades 2 through 6, the MCFC educators—working with local curriculum advisors—have tailored the curriculum to accommodate older and younger audiences. We have delighted over 10,500 students from dozens of schools throughtout the state. We're looking to sign up additional school children to delight.
www.mcclearwater.org/tef.php
Take a look at our music-filled animated tour of TEF click:
www.mcclearwater.org/etef.php
or write:
info@mcclearwater.org
TEF's Resounding Success
TEF Partnering with College Students and Staff
By George Moffat
We recently had a Traveling Environmental Festival (TEF) at the Spruce Street School in Lakewood that was a resounding success. We had two Brookdale Community College (BCC) students as instructors and they did a fine job.
We were located in the science classroom, and the science teacher, who was in and out all day, said he was getting terrific feedback from the teachers. He said one teacher said the program was "superb."
Then both the principal and vice principal approached me separately in the hallway to say how happy they both were with the program. We also had a special education class, and the teacher said he was amazed that we could hold their attention for a complete hour. We have been invited back, in addition to being asked back so that their 6th grade classes can take the program. In fact, the 6th grade teacher came into our classroom and said she also was hearing such positive things about the program that she wished her class also had been scheduled that day.
We also got positive feedback from the teachers and principal at Neptune City, but Spruce Street's response was overwhelming. I walked away from Spruce Street with a very positive feeling.
Our TEF has gotten off to a great start, supported by grants from Whole Foods and Wachovia/Lakewood Blue Claws. We also are partnering to present the program with two well-known educational organizations, the Science Field Station of Brookdale Community College and the college's Ocean Institute, both located at Sandy Hook. Field Station Manager Robert Macaluso and Ocean Institute Director Dave Grant are working with us to train science students and staff members to be employed as TEF instructors. Thirteen college students have already received training and Institute staff members will work with us during their off-season months. Two students, Alex Broszeit of Manasquan and Patrick Vansaghi of Howell, successfully inaugurated the program last month at Neptune City's Woodrow Wilson School.
We have scheduled TEF presentations with the Asbury Park and Lakewood School districts for early next year and we are working with other districts as well. Hopefully, the 2009 program will exceed the very successful 2007 and 2008 presentations.
The grants will permit us enrich the TEF program by associating with the academic community, its students, and staff, while also updating equipment, exhibits, and instructor training materials. The grants also will permit us to expand the program's outreach to the community. In addition, the grammar school students and their teachers are very impressed with seeing college students as TEF instructors.