For almost a decade there has been an ongoing discussion about the question of powerful knowledge in geography education (Lambert, 2011; Roberts, 2015; Maude, 2017; Taylor, 2018) and there are several conceptual models trying to describe what might be considered powerful knowledge in a school context. However, these models have mainly addressed philosophical, epistemological and pedagogical issues in its focus on (a) the characteristics of powerful knowledge, and (b) what kind of power does it give those who possess it. Building upon the extensive work made in history education (Lee, 2005; Seixas & Morton, 2013) this paper suggests a shift in focus towards a conceptual model describing knowledge as first and second order concepts. The argument is that powerful geographical knowledge as geocapabilities mainly can be understood from the second order level and that these can be useful for teachers in order to make tacit knowledge more explicit in learning activities. Departing from the discussions in geography education, a framework of six geographical thinking concepts are suggested.