Education plays a fundamental role in shaping societies, while societies, in turn, influence education through their cultural, social, and environmental contexts. As educational research navigates a world shaped by climate change, technological advancements, and natural disasters, it must examine how individuals construct their understanding of scientific phenomena. Natural disasters such as earthquakes, wildfires, floods, and storms are becoming increasingly relevant as climate change intensifies their frequency and impact. Understanding how people conceptualize and explain these events is crucial, particularly in fostering scientific literacy in early childhood.

Children actively construct their own understanding of the world from an early age. Their conceptions of natural phenomena are shaped by direct experiences, family influences, and media exposure. However, these sources do not always align with scientific knowledge, leading to alternative conceptions that may persist into formal education. At this critical intersection, science education plays a key role in fostering scientific literacy, encouraging children to adopt evidence-based reasoning rather than misconceptions.

Scientific epistemological beliefs refer to an individual's perceptions and understanding of scientific concepts, knowledge acquisition, and justification. Many factors influence the development of these beliefs. Research shows that children's epistemological beliefs vary based on socioeconomic status (Conley et al., 2004; Ozkal et al., 2010), parental education (Ozkal et al., 2010), cultural background (Chan & Elliott, 2002), and gender (Kim & Hamdan Alghamdi, 2023; Neber & Schommer-Aikins, 2002). Studies also indicate that parents' epistemological beliefs shape their children's scientific thinking (Luce et al., 2013; Osterhaus & Koerber, 2024; Suárez & Koenig, 2021), with greater influence during early childhood (Osterhaus & Koerber, 2024). This suggests that improving parents’ epistemological beliefs could enhance children's scientific understanding in early education.

In the context of earthquakes, understanding how parents conceptualize and explain these natural disasters to their children is essential. Research suggests that direct experience with natural disasters can shape individuals’ scientific understanding—sometimes reinforcing scientific explanations, while in other cases, leading to alternative or supernatural interpretations (Lee, 1999; Tsai, 2001). Parents who have personally experienced an earthquake may develop a more emotionally charged and experience-driven perspective. In contrast, those without firsthand experience may rely on cultural narratives, second-hand information, or media portrayals.

Since early childhood learning is primarily shaped by parental explanations, examining how earthquake-experienced and non-experienced parents communicate their beliefs about earthquakes provides valuable insight into the development of scientific literacy across different sociocultural settings. Parents who emphasize scientific explanations may foster rational, evidence-based thinking, while those who incorporate supernatural or non-scientific narratives may reinforce alternative conceptions in their children’s understanding.

This study explores how parents in two different contexts - those who have experienced an earthquake and those who have not - conceptualize earthquakes and convey these beliefs to their preschool-aged children. Specifically, it seeks to answer:

1. What are the scientific epistemological beliefs of earthquake-experienced and non-experienced parents about earthquakes?
2. How do earthquake-experienced and non-experienced parents communicate their scientific epistemological beliefs about earthquakes to their children?

From a European perspective, this study is particularly relevant as natural disasters are an increasing concern across the continent. While earthquakes are common in Italy, Greece, and Turkey, climate change makes other disasters—such as flooding in Germany and Belgium, heatwaves in Spain and France, and wildfires in Portugal and Greece—more frequent. As scientific literacy is a key priority in European education policies, understanding how parents from diverse backgrounds conceptualize and explain natural disasters to their children can provide valuable insights into developing early scientific thinking in different sociocultural contexts.

This study employs a qualitative comparative case study design (Yin, 2018) to examine how earthquake-experienced and non-experienced parents conceptualize earthquakes and communicate their epistemological beliefs to their preschool-aged children. A qualitative approach allows for an in-depth exploration of the ways in which parents construct, interpret, and convey their scientific understanding of earthquakes within their sociocultural contexts. Participants are selected using purposive sampling (Patton, 2002), focusing on two groups of parents with preschool-aged children (4–5 years old). The first group consists of parents who have directly experienced a devastating earthquake in 2023, February 6th, and currently reside in a container city, where their children attend a container kindergarten. The second group includes parents who have not experienced a significant earthquake but come from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds, with their children attending a university-affiliated kindergarten that implements a community-based early intervention program. Each group includes 12 parents, ensuring sufficient data for thematic saturation. These two kindergartens in question are located in different cities. Even though these two kindergartens are located in different cities, the educational model, organization, and the team of academics who work voluntarily for both schools are the same. Data collection involves semi-structured interviews that explore parents’ conceptions of earthquakes, their sources of knowledge, and how they communicate these beliefs to their children. The interview questions probe whether parents rely on scientific, alternative, or supernatural explanations and how confident they feel about understanding seismic events. Data is analyzed using thematic analysis (Bernard et al., 2017). Responses are coded to identify patterns in epistemological beliefs, knowledge sources, and transmission ways. A comparative analysis explores differences in the beliefs and explanations parents provide from the two sociocultural groups. Special attention is given to whether direct earthquake experience fosters more scientific or emotionally driven explanations and how parents’ knowledge structures shape children’s conceptual understanding. Ethical considerations include obtaining informed consent from all participants, ensuring confidentiality through pseudonyms, and securing data storage. Parents are also given the right to leave the study at any time.

This study will provide insights into how earthquake-experienced and non-experienced parents conceptualize earthquakes and communicate their scientific epistemological beliefs to their children. The findings will highlight differences in belief structures, knowledge sources, and communication styles between the two groups. It is anticipated that earthquake-experienced parents will have a more personalized, experience-driven understanding of earthquakes, incorporating firsthand sensory experiences and emphasizing safety behaviors. In contrast, non-experienced parents may rely more on formal education, media, or cultural narratives, potentially leading to variations in certainty, confidence, and scientific accuracy when explaining earthquakes. The study is also expected to reveal differences in how parents communicate their beliefs. Earthquake-experienced parents may provide concrete, action-oriented explanations focusing on preparedness and emotional coping mechanisms. In contrast, non-experienced parents may use more abstract or second-hand descriptions, sometimes including alternative or supernatural explanations. Additionally, the study may uncover whether parental confidence in their knowledge affects the clarity and depth of their explanations to children. Beyond identifying these differences, this research will offer practical implications for early childhood science education and disaster literacy programs. It may highlight gaps in parental scientific knowledge that could impact children’s understanding of natural disasters. The study's findings could inform targeted science education initiatives, ensuring that both earthquake-experienced and non-experienced parents are better equipped to provide scientifically accurate and confidence-driven explanations to their children. This study will contribute to a broader understanding of intergenerational knowledge transmission, scientific literacy, and disaster preparedness in early childhood education by examining the sociocultural and experiential factors that shape how parents conceptualize and communicate earthquake-related knowledge.

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