Gesture-based learning have particularities, because learners interact in the learning process through the actual way, just like they interact in the nondigital world. It also can support kinesthetic pedagogical practices to benefit learners with strong bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. But without proper assistance or guidance, learners’ learning performance are usually disappointing. To cope with this problem, the aim of this paper proposed a concept map-oriented gesture-based teaching system in earth science course. There were 90 participants in the experiments designed with the three teaching strategies (concept map-oriented gesture-based teaching system, conventional gesture-based teaching system, and traditional e-book teaching materials). The experimental results show that the concept map-oriented gesture-based teaching strategy and traditional e-book teaching materials also improve the learning performance of the students in earth science course than conventional gesture-based teaching strategy. Learners’ cognitive load was also measured and showed that the concept map-oriented gesture-based teaching strategy had lower cognitive load than conventional gesture-based teaching strategy. There was no significant difference in learning performance and cognitive load between the concept map-oriented gesture-based teaching strategy and traditional e-book teaching materials.