Competences related to GIS and Earth Sciences

Introduction

In the era of rapid environmental change and increasing reliance on spatial technologies, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are essential tools that help learners make sense of complex Earth systems, as we mentioned in the previous lessons. By integrating GIS into Earth Sciences, educators empower students with the knowledge and skills to observe, analyze, and interpret real-world spatial data — fostering both scientific understanding and civic awareness.

This lesson focuses on the core competencies that students develop when working with GIS in the context of Earth Sciences. These competencies support problem-solving, data-driven critical thinking, and collaboration — all vital for responding to today’s sustainability challenges.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

✅ Understand how GIS enhances learning in Earth Science education
✅ Identify key GIS-related knowledge and skills 
✅ Connect Green, Digital and Spatial knowledge and skills based on the GEO-Academy Unified Competence Framework
✅ Explore how GIS supports interdisciplinary learning and curriculum integration

As highlighted in the beginning, the integration of GIS into Earth Sciences education equips learners with a dynamic set of competencies that are vital for navigating the complexities of our planet. However, GIS is not only a powerful tool for analyzing and visualizing spatial data but also a catalyst for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary learning and teaching. In this lesson, we explore the critical competencies students can develop when engaging with GIS technologies in the context of Earth Sciences — spanning cognitive, digital, scientific, and professional domains.

As a core technical and scientific concept, GIS and Geosciences enable learners to interpret complex patterns, model environmental processes, and make informed decisions. At the same time, they foster key transversal competences such as critical and systems thinking, data fluency, and problem-solving. These competencies align with broader European education priorities, including those outlined in frameworks such as the Green Competence Framework (GreenComp), the Digital Competence Framework (DigComp), and the Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Competence Framework (LifeComp).

🌱 GreenComp – European Sustainability Competence Framework

GreenComp identifies 4 interrelated competence areas, each with 3 competences (12 in total):

Embodying sustainability values

• Valuing sustainability
• Supporting fairness
• Promoting nature

Embracing complexity in sustainability

• Systems thinking
• Critical thinking
• Problem framing

Envisioning sustainable futures

• Futures literacy
• Adaptability
• Exploratory thinking

Acting for sustainability

• Political agency
• Collective action
• Individual initiative

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💻 DigComp – Digital Competence Framework for Citizens

DigComp is structured into 5 key competence areas, with 21 competences in total:

Information and data literacy

• Browsing, searching and filtering data
• Evaluating data and digital content
• Managing digital content

Communication and collaboration

• Interacting through digital technologies
• Sharing information and content
• Engaging in citizenship through digital tech
• Collaborating through digital tools
• Netiquette
• Managing digital identity

Digital content creation

• Developing digital content
• Integrating and re-elaborating content
• Copyright and licensing
• Programming

Safety

• Protecting devices
• Protecting personal data and privacy
• Protecting health and well-being
• Protecting the environment

Problem solving

• Solving technical problems
• Identifying needs and digital responses
• Creatively using digital tech
• Identifying gaps in digital competence

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🧠 LifeComp – Personal, Social and Learning to Learn Competence Framework

LifeComp includes 3 competence areas, each with 3 competences (9 in total):

Personal

• Self-regulation
• Flexibility
• Wellbeing

Social

• Empathy
• Communication
• Collaboration

Learning to Learn

• Growth mindset
• Critical thinking
• Managing learning

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But, how these competence frameworks are linked to GIS?

Higher education students engaging with GIS technologies develop a wide range of core technical skills that enhance their analytical and problem-solving abilities across disciplines. GIS software proficiency is a foundational skill, where learners gain experience in operating platforms like ArcGIS or QGIS. Through hands-on practice, they learn to transform raw datasets into models and visual representations for applications such as environmental monitoring or urban planning. Coding skills are also cultivated, particularly with programming languages like Python or SQL. These languages enable students to automate workflows, perform advanced spatial analyses, and work seamlessly across different GIS environments. Through spatial analysis, students investigate the geographical, topographical, and geometric characteristics of both natural and human-made environments. This includes using maps and digital models to interpret real-world spatial patterns and relationships. Research skills are further developed as learners learn to responsibly source, validate, and process diverse geospatial data. This includes adhering to ethical standards while handling complex datasets from multiple sources. Finally, statistics and data literacy are essential competencies, as students are required to apply statistical reasoning to interpret qualitative and quantitative spatial data accurately. This helps them draw meaningful conclusions and make data-informed decisions in various contexts [1].

Check the following informative videos!

However, you may be wondering  how primary or secondary school students would benefit by using GIS technology and overall, Geosciences. The following 10 educational benefits of working with GIS opens up a world of possibilities for all learners [2].

Educational Competences fostered by GIS

• Spatial Thinking:
  Learners gain the ability to perceive spatial relationships and patterns, connecting deeply with environmental and societal processes through digital and interactive mapping tools. spatial thinking uses space for structuring problems, seeking answers, and formulating possible solutions associated with space in science, in the workplace and in everyday life. It also includes the ability to review and analyse space, which are essential to the “mental toolbox” of an educated citizen for spatial management and decision making.

• Critical Thinking:
  GIS encourages analysis of data quality, resolution, accuracy, and representation. Thus, critical thinking must include three aspects: critical thinking about data, critical thinking about methods, and critical thinking about maps. Students learn to question and assess the tools and data they use. Questions to pose as you teach with GIS include the following:  Can you trust this map as a source for making a decision? Is this map or layer suitable for your project? Can you trust the data that you yourself collected in the field? What are the inherent errors in data?

• Project-Based Learning (PBL):
  GIS naturally supports PBL by helping learners engage with real-world challenges, from climate change to urban sustainability, and develop actionable solutions. Using GIS students are able to frame, visualize, and grapple with problems. GIS also enables students to create solutions to those problems, whether they are about natural hazards, climate, urban greenways, litter, energy, social inequity, or other complex issues of our day.

• Geographic and Scientific Inquiry:
  Inquiry involves asking questions, gathering data, assessing the quality of that data, evaluating methods, analyzing the data and the results from each of the methods used, making decisions and recommendations, and taking action. Through GIS, students practice scientific inquiry by collecting data, forming hypotheses, evaluating results, and proposing interventions.

• Data Fluency:
  Learners build fluency in sourcing, analyzing, and presenting digital information — key for navigating the 21st-century workplace. There are five important fluencies. Solution fluency is whole-brain thinking, including creativity and problem-solving applied in real time. Information fluency is the ability to access digital information sources to retrieve desired information and assess and critically evaluate the quality of information. Collaboration fluency—a teamwork proficiency—is, according to the book’s authors, the “ability to work cooperatively with virtual and real partners in an online environment to create original digital products.” Creativity fluency is, the authors say, the “process by which artistic proficiency adds meaning through design, art, and storytelling.” And media fluency is the ability to look analytically at any communication media to interpret the real message.

• Community Connection—GIS is a tool used worldwide to help better understand global challenges such as climate, education, water, and other issues addressed in the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But at the same time, GIS is a tool that students and educators can use to engage on issues at the local level, such as planning a new bike trail, nurturing public art or community gardens, or tackling traffic accidents or graffiti.

• Mobile Workforces — Learning beyond the classroom should actively involve fieldwork and outdoor experiences. Such hands-on engagement is crucial for students to better understand the dynamic nature of our world and local communities, while also fostering a deeper appreciation for the Earth and a sense of responsibility toward its care. Effective field activities require thoughtful planning, execution, and data analysis. They are closely linked to project design, navigating uncertainty, using both advanced and simple tools, and managing various forms of data—from selected units and variables to the creation of data tables, images, geodatabases, and maps. In many cases, this also includes reaching out to community members for land access, support, or collaboration.
• Career Pathways—Students often ask, “When are we ever going to use this after we get out of school?” While we shouldn’t use GIS in education just because it is in demand in the workplace, we should recognize that GIS does provide students with career skills that will never go out of style. Students who use GIS become valuable employees for nonprofit organizations; academia; government agencies, ranging from local to international; and private industry. They are able to make decisions, work with data, and see holistically. Sustainability and resilience will be in every organization’s plan in the future, and GIS will always have a key role.
• Content Knowledge—When you are teaching and learning with GIS, you are gaining core content knowledge. GIS was never about “buttonology”—the practice of memorizing where tools and buttons are on the GIS interface and learning how to use them. Even if you are teaching and learning in a GIS or geographic information science (GIScience) course, every procedure has real data behind it, so you are concurrently learning about plate tectonics, ecoregions, climate, the hydrologic network, transportation, energy, city zoning, or other aspects of our natural and human-built world. GIS is core to science, including social science!
• Students as Change Agents—Students empowered with the skills, content knowledge, and perspectives detailed in this article have the confidence and ability to become change agents in their future workplace. GIS can also serve to help women and people in other underrepresented populations step into technology-based careers. To learn more about several inspiring women in the geospatial community, check out the GeoInspirations series of articles and podcasts.

Useful links

1. GreenComp: the European sustainability competence framework
2. DigComp: Digital Competence Framework for Citizens
3. LifeComp: The European framework for the personal, social and learning to learn key competence
4. GIS Skills: Definitions and Examples (with Languages)
5. ESRI: Top 10 Educational Benefits for Students Who Use GIS
6. GIS for SCIENCE Volume 3 Maps for Saving the Planet