Socioscientific issues as a moral context for hazard literacy and disaster education

Disaster education is critical for fostering community resilience, but it often struggles to engage learners deeply with the complex, real-world dimensions of hazards. This paper explores the potential of socioscientific issues (SSI) as a pedagogical context to enhance disaster education. SSI, which involve complex, open-ended problems with conceptual, procedural, and ethical components, provide a rich framework for developing critical thinking, decision-making skills, and civic engagement—all vital for effective disaster preparedness and response. I will define SSI, highlight current limitations in hazard literacy/disaster education, and propose how integrating SSI can promote a more holistic understanding of disaster phenomena, encourage ethical reasoning regarding mitigation and adaptation strategies, and empower individuals to become active participants in building safer communities. Hence, this paper argues that hazard literacy education, as well as disaster education, can be instantiated with an SSI-based approach leading to more meaningful, relevant, and impactful disaster education.