Innovation and science depends on schools

The argument

Converting classes for online platforms is relatively feasible for many majors within the humanities and social sciences, but for a department that requires hands-on physical learning and lab work, converting to an online platform threatens the integrity of learning and research projects. Courses in the hard sciences, such as biology and chemistry, require lab and field time for practical experience. Students won't have access to the necessary equipment and tools for class, and many of the would-be routine activities will have to be reworked or removed entirely if classes are online. Lab and fieldwork in STEM degrees are where students develop many of the necessary skills to prepare them for future work in the field, learning how to use the technology, conduct experiments, run tests, and interpret results. Many colleges and universities are leaders in scientific research, but with the social distancing required to prevent the spread, ongoing and emerging research projects could be in danger. Without easy access to labs especially, valuable research may be lost as research samples go unattended and results unrecorded. The integrity and stability of research is threatened if research institutions remain online and lab access restricted or denied. Online platforms obstructs students ability to learn and impact researcher's ability to conduct effective studies. A lot of what students learn in labs prepares them for careers in the outside world, teaching them how to use real equipment and conduct real practical experiments and research. Higher education play a vital role in teaching future scientists and facilitating scientific development, therefore every effort should be made for them to be able to reopen and resume in-person learning and research.

Premises

Counter-arguments

While students are not getting as many real hands-on experiences, the shift to online learning is democratizing as professors are able to open up their classes to more students. The online platforms remove many financial and geographical barriers to student's learning, allowing more students to take part. Online learning platforms are also more accessible to second language students who can slow down and repeat recorded lectures and avoid falling behind. Professors have developed creative solutions to these barriers and found innovative ways of getting students a virtual lab practical experience, while are sending lab kits to student's homes for them to participate remotely. This is especially important as the future of fieldwork itself is changing. These new strategies will likely extend beyond the college classroom and into the real lab and research settings, therefore providing a practical learning experience for students.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise is right about the limits of remote laboratory work but treats the choice as binary. Laboratory and field components can be deferred, compressed into later terms, run in small distanced cohorts or supported with kits sent to students, all of which were done — and much of a science degree consists of lectures, problem classes and analysis that transfer to remote delivery without loss. [Rejecting P2] Research and undergraduate teaching are separated by the premise's own logic and then run back together. Laboratory research continued through the period under distancing protocols in most institutions, and it does not require undergraduates to be resident on campus, which is what the conclusion asks for. Graduate researchers and staff are a different population from the students a reopening decision concerns. [Rejecting P3] The conclusion needs a comparison the premises never make. The costs of remote delivery are set out; the costs of reopening — transmission among students, staff and the surrounding community, and the closures and reversals that followed at institutions that tried it — are not counted at all. A claim that science depends on campuses also sits oddly beside a year in which vaccine development, epidemiological modelling and genomic surveillance proceeded at record speed.