From an everyday device to professional instrumentation. A framework for Portable Geoscience Learning Infrastructure and its illustrative application to ITA ARANDU MS

Carlos Busón , Sandra Gabas

Geoscience education depends on practices that connect classroom learning with field settings: observing, locating, measuring, recording, comparing evidence, reasoning under uncertainty, and constructing interpretations. Digital fieldwork allows some of these practices to be undertaken with mobile devices, yet digital convenience, instrumental accuracy, and learning are not equivalent. This paper develops Portable Geoscience Learning Infrastructure (PGLI), a conceptual framework for analyzing digital resources carried by learners that sustain continuity across preparation, fieldwork, and synthesis while preserving learner authorship of field records, epistemic transparency, progression to professional instrumentation, and context-sensitive data governance. The framework was derived through a problem-oriented thematic synthesis of literature on geoscience cognition and competencies, field-based and situated learning, digital geology and mobile learning, uncertainty and epistemic practices, learner participation, and data governance. Six design principles are proposed: portability and reduced dependence on additional infrastructure; continuity across settings and local-first resilience; disciplinary practice and learner authorship of field records; epistemic transparency; progression to professional instrumentation and awareness of limitations; and context-sensitive ethical and territorial data governance. ITA ARANDU MS, a mobile-first Progressive Web App developed in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil, is used as an illustrative application rather than as evidence of effectiveness. An illustrative contrastive application to published systems yields distinct analytical profiles without ranking quality or claiming external validation. PGLI offers operational criteria and explicit failure conditions for examining when a mobile environment functions as portable educational infrastructure and what evidence is still needed to evaluate its effects in use.