In a middle-school environmental science unit on climate change, students work with real-world climate data on global temperature anomalies, carbon dioxide levels, and sea-ice extent, provided through an online interactive graphing platform such as NOAA's Climate Dashboard, or through a classroom-friendly simulation tool. Students are tasked with reading graphical representations of data, interpreting trends, and generating their own multimodal climate models. The student models might be in the form of handdrawn graphs, digital infographics, explanatory paragraphs, or short video explanations that integrate visuals with narration.

This is a powerful example of how visual, numerical, digital, and oral literacies can represent and make meaning of some very complex scientific knowledge. In this sense, climate science cannot be understood through the written text but rather through interpreting data displays, looking for patterns across time, and matching quantitative evidence with scientific explanation. Consequently, literacies are not add-ons but are necessary tools to construct understanding within a discipline.

In this practice, visual literacy is the basis. Students must decode scales, axes, color coding, trend lines, and anomalies in graphs. These representational conventions carry scientific meaning: the slope of a line indicates rate of change; shaded confidence intervals reflect uncertainty; contrasting colors differentiate variables. Without the ability to interpret these visual sign systems, students cannot access the scientific narrative embedded in the data.

Numerical literacy is also central. Students translate numbers into conceptual understanding—recognizing, for example, that a “0.2°C increase per decade” signals acceleration or that rising CO₂ concentration corresponds with temperature anomalies. In this way, mathematical representations become a language to describe geological and ecological processes.

Digital literacies enable students to manipulate variables, animate data over time, or layer datasets. This interactivity supports deeper inquiry and empowers students to ask evidence-based questions.

Finally, oral and written literacies enable students to synthesize their interpretations. For example, as students explain a graph in writing or narrate a short video, they translate visual-numerical representations into coherent scientific arguments. This movement between modes-graph → explanation → model-underscores the way in which literacies actively shape disciplinary reasoning. Overall, the climate-modeling activity shows that literacies are not simply communication tools; they are epistemic tools whereby scientific knowledge is represented, interpreted, and built. The practice of literacy in science is inseparable from the act of scientific thinking itself.