Traveling Environmental Festival

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.

The TEF is comprised of its Introduction, its five stations, and Closing. The stations presented as well as the timeframe of the engagement 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

As illustrated below, after the Introduction, the class of students is divided into smaller groups assigned to each of the stations.  After the allotted time period, the groups rotate to the next station until all stations have been visited. They are then reassembled and presented a skit, a singalong, and/or discussion which summarizes and reinforces their TEF educational experience. Music is an integral part of NJ Friends of Clearwater - it was literally founded on, and originally funded by - music.  Music plays an even more intrinsic role in TEF as an educational mechanism for reinforcement of concepts.