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
0.1 Objective:
- 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
0.3 Procedures:
- 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
0.4 Anticipatory Set:
- What is water? Why is it so important?
- What is pollution?
- How does it affect life forms?
0.5 Materials:
- 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
0.6 Closure:
0.7 Reinforcement:
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@verizon.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.]
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 |
TEF REACHES 2500 CHILDREN
The Traveling Environmental Fair (TEF), a centerpiece of the N.J. Friends of Clearwater's environmental advocacy program, reached about 500 grammar school students in three schools this spring semester, plus about 2,000 youngsters at the "Ocean Fun Day" at Sandy Hook.
The TEF program, a series of one-hour presentations that were held at Cove Avenue School in Hazlet, Memorial School in Union Beach, and the Center School in Keyport, includes an introduction to New Jersey's land, air and water problems; the critical role plankton play in the food chain; the ocean's role in maintaining the atmosphere's oxygen levels through photosynthesis and generating fresh water through the "water cycle;" and the adverse impact unnecessary land-based nutrients have on New Jersey's coastal waters.
Students then were cycled through three hands-on, interactive stations. One deals with the pollution threats to a wide variety of marine life in Raritan Bay and other estuaries, featuring a fish tank with live killies, crabs, snails, and a grumpy puffer fish. It also includes a generous supply of less-than-live crab, clam, and mussel shells, egg casing, coral, and other beachcombing artifacts. Another station discusses how non-source (or multi-source pollution) can flow from streams, rivers, bays into oceans. The third station provides a study of live, fresh-water plankton under a microscope.
TEF was invited to five schools, but one failed to get back to us with proposed dates, and the other canceled because of insurance requirements. The teachers and administrators at the other schools had nothing but praise for the program. We hope to visit four to five schools during the fall semester.
We benefited from several experienced instructors: Jodi Vergilio, an instructor at Brookdale Community College's Ocean Institute, a community outreach marine program based at Sandy Hook; Patrick Vansaghi, a student at BCC's Science Field Station at Sandy Hook who has taught TEF for several semesters; Paula Phillips, who has a degree in biology and recently concluded a teaching project at Kean College; and TEF director George Moffatt. Special thanks to Jack Charlton, who raises the zooplankton for the program, and Bob Macaluso, manager of the BCC Science Field Station at Sandy Hook, who helps provide instructors, storage space, and live marine specimens. (Alas, we owe him a starfish that was devoured by the puffer.)
The second phase of TEF's outreach was a tabling event at "Ocean Fun Day," an all-day outdoor exhibit of educational, environmental, and governmental organizations, plus "green" vendors, overlooking Raritan Bay at Sandy Hook. "Fun Day" usually attracts about 2,500 people, mostly youngsters, but this year, despite threatening weather, the event drew about 6,000 people – according to the event's sponsors-- at least half of who were students. Visitors to our TEF "Raritan Bay" exhibit sometimes stood several rows deep to view our fish tank full of live killies, crabs, snails, and that "killer" puffer fish, as well as our display of crab, clam, and mussel shells and other marine artifacts.
Youngsters at "Ocean Fun Day" learn about marine life – and pollution – in Raritan Bay. (Photo by Jack Charlton)
NJF Clearwater representatives President Joellen Lundy and George Moffat were augmented by stalwart semi-retired members Barbara and Jack Charlton, who publicized the Festival, and member emeritus Ray Cann.
"Fun Day," an established event run for years by the NJ Marine Sciences Consortium (now renamed the NJ Sea Grant Consortium), provides a great opportunity for NJF Clearwater to reach with little effort large numbers of children and their parents to instill the conservation ethic in our next generation of citizen leaders. This year's attendance figures indicate it is an exceptional program to educate youngsters, and we should plan now to take full advantage of it next year, as well.
The TEF program, a series of one-hour presentations that were held at Cove Avenue School in Hazlet, Memorial School in Union Beach, and the Center School in Keyport, includes an introduction to New Jersey's land, air and water problems; the critical role plankton play in the food chain; the ocean's role in maintaining the atmosphere's oxygen levels through photosynthesis and generating fresh water through the "water cycle;" and the adverse impact unnecessary land-based nutrients have on New Jersey's coastal waters.
Students then were cycled through three hands-on, interactive stations. One deals with the pollution threats to a wide variety of marine life in Raritan Bay and other estuaries, featuring a fish tank with live killies, crabs, snails, and a grumpy puffer fish. It also includes a generous supply of less-than-live crab, clam, and mussel shells, egg casing, coral, and other beachcombing artifacts. Another station discusses how non-source (or multi-source pollution) can flow from streams, rivers, bays into oceans. The third station provides a study of live, fresh-water plankton under a microscope.
TEF was invited to five schools, but one failed to get back to us with proposed dates, and the other canceled because of insurance requirements. The teachers and administrators at the other schools had nothing but praise for the program. We hope to visit four to five schools during the fall semester.
We benefited from several experienced instructors: Jodi Vergilio, an instructor at Brookdale Community College's Ocean Institute, a community outreach marine program based at Sandy Hook; Patrick Vansaghi, a student at BCC's Science Field Station at Sandy Hook who has taught TEF for several semesters; Paula Phillips, who has a degree in biology and recently concluded a teaching project at Kean College; and TEF director George Moffatt. Special thanks to Jack Charlton, who raises the zooplankton for the program, and Bob Macaluso, manager of the BCC Science Field Station at Sandy Hook, who helps provide instructors, storage space, and live marine specimens. (Alas, we owe him a starfish that was devoured by the puffer.)
The second phase of TEF's outreach was a tabling event at "Ocean Fun Day," an all-day outdoor exhibit of educational, environmental, and governmental organizations, plus "green" vendors, overlooking Raritan Bay at Sandy Hook. "Fun Day" usually attracts about 2,500 people, mostly youngsters, but this year, despite threatening weather, the event drew about 6,000 people – according to the event's sponsors-- at least half of who were students. Visitors to our TEF "Raritan Bay" exhibit sometimes stood several rows deep to view our fish tank full of live killies, crabs, snails, and that "killer" puffer fish, as well as our display of crab, clam, and mussel shells and other marine artifacts.
Youngsters at "Ocean Fun Day" learn about marine life – and pollution – in Raritan Bay. (Photo by Jack Charlton)
NJF Clearwater representatives President Joellen Lundy and George Moffat were augmented by stalwart semi-retired members Barbara and Jack Charlton, who publicized the Festival, and member emeritus Ray Cann.
"Fun Day," an established event run for years by the NJ Marine Sciences Consortium (now renamed the NJ Sea Grant Consortium), provides a great opportunity for NJF Clearwater to reach with little effort large numbers of children and their parents to instill the conservation ethic in our next generation of citizen leaders. This year's attendance figures indicate it is an exceptional program to educate youngsters, and we should plan now to take full advantage of it next year, as well.