“Social studies is the exploration of people’s interactionsin and with their social and physical environments,” (Mindes, 2006, p. 107). Children develop an understanding of their wider world, by forming relationships and having experiences with their family, school and community (Mindes, 2006).
During our exploration of the child’s environment we discussed the people that help us, doctors, nurses, firemen, teachers and the police in our community. As part of our collaborative approach to planning which involves families and communities in children’s learning and development, we invited the Fire Department to visit our centre (Arthur, Beecher, Dockett, Death, Farmer, 2008).
Te Whariki also affirms the links between the child’s environment ie; home, school and community (Ministry of Education, 1996). The children were excited to see the firemen, the fire engine and they waited in anticipation for the events that followed. Before going outside, the firemen demonstrated their protective gear and spoke to the children about fire safety. “The fireman saves us from the fire,” said Chanel. Many of the children were knowledgeable about the firemen, which sparked interesting discussions with the firemen, they could even name some of the protective gear. The children also practised the stop, drop and roll safety strategy. Mindes (2006) affirms that educators need to establish children’s knowledge base and then extend on what they already know, while focusing on what we want to learn. The firemen then led the children outside where they had a look at the fire engine and while the siren was exciting for some, some children were scared of the loud siren. The highlight of the day, was when each child enjoyed a first hand experience with the firemen and had the opportunity to hold the fire hose with water gushing out. When the firemen left we reviewed what learning had taken place and gave the children stickers of the stop, drop and roll to re-enforce safety procedures.
Many children shared their experiences at home, and we then discovered that one of the children had an uncle who was a policeman and he was happy to visit our centre. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory is relevant to the influences that several environmental factors have on children’s development and learning (Santrock, 2008). Bronfebrenner extended on Vygotsky’s ideas and he included places, connections between people, places and things in the environment surrounding a child, as being significant to children’s learning (Santrock, 2008). The Meso-system focuses on the relationships between family members, friends and classmates at school. The Exo-system refers to the wider social setting that directly influences the child, like extended family, community, work, travel and neighbours. These are most relevant to our learning and development (Santrock, 2008). We were fortunate to have had the firemen and the community police as part of our learning journey on people in the community that help us.
