Energy Crisis and Distance Learning: Will the Virtual Lab Be Enough for Life Sciences?

The energy crisis has reopened the debate on distance learning, but its widespread adoption in higher education raises significant challenges.

José A. Brito

At a time when the pressure to reduce energy consumption is becoming increasingly urgent, distance learning is once again emerging as a tempting solution. The rationale is economic, environmentally sound, and comes directly from the European Commission: fewer journeys, lower emissions, and reduced operational costs. However, this apparent efficiency conceals a profound risk for fields where excellence depends on something that no screen can ever fully convey: direct practical experience.

For future biologists, biochemists, and biomedical researchers, the question is not whether digital technologies can help, but whether they can replace the real laboratory. What happens to students whose education is not built through screens and downloads, but through hands-on work with reagents and microscopes? Can a virtual laboratory truly be sufficient to train the scientists of tomorrow?

The answer, supported by the very epistemology of Science, is a resounding “no”. Education in these fields is founded upon an irreducible pillar: practical learning, or “learning by doing”. This is not an optional component or an entertaining addition to theory; it is the method itself. It is in the laboratory that knowledge ceases to be an abstraction and becomes a tangible, critical experience. No matter how sophisticated remote teaching may be, it encounters an insurmountable barrier: it can simulate, but it cannot enable students to do.

Consider why. Manual dexterity — the precise calibration of a micropipette, the preparation of a histological slide without creating air bubbles, or the aseptic techniques required to handle cell cultures — is not acquired by watching tutorials. It is developed through physical repetition, trial and error, and tactile correction, building a form of muscle memory that no online quiz can assess. A student may answer every question about a PCR protocol correctly in a digital exercise, but if they contaminate a sample at the bench because they have not mastered the protocol’s basic procedures, their knowledge is effectively worthless.

Even more crucial is the confrontation between the “virtual” and the unpredictable complexity of the “real”. In a virtual simulator, a protocol will almost always tend to run smoothly. In a real laboratory, equipment fails, reagents may be degraded, and control samples can produce unexpected results. It is within this productive frustration that genuine scientific thinking is forged: the ability to diagnose problems, improvise solutions, and distinguish artefacts from meaningful results. This problem-solving dimension, which requires keen observation, immediate discussion with lecturers and peers, and constant adjustment of procedures, simply does not exist in an asynchronous or synchronous virtual environment, regardless of the quality of the video connection.

To be clear, digital tools undoubtedly have a valuable role to play. Simulations of complex techniques or equipment worth millions of euros can provide an invaluable introduction. Virtual reality can allow students to “practise” dissections or surgical procedures repeatedly, without ethical or material costs. These are powerful tools for optimisation and democratisation of access. But they are tools, not the end goal. The danger lies in confusing the means with the objective. If the energy crisis leads us to accept remote learning as the standard model for these disciplines, we risk producing a generation of biology and biochemistry theorists with a serious deficit in practical skills. They may understand the manuals, yet feel intimidated by a laboratory bench; they may master the theory presented in scientific papers, yet be unable to generate reliable data with their own hands.

The challenge posed by this crisis (whether energy-related, environmental, economic, ethical, or one of human values — issues that will not be explored here) is not a choice between face-to-face and remote learning. It is a challenge of pedagogical intelligence: how can we design a hybrid model that preserves the essence of “learning by doing” while responding to energy and environmental constraints? One solution may be to concentrate practical training into intensive on-campus blocks (laboratory boot camps), drastically reducing weekly commuting while ensuring that in-person time remains focused, dense, and irreplaceable. Another may involve greater investment in partnerships with local laboratories for practical classes, internships, and applied research projects that connect students early on with the real challenges of their communities and local industries. It may require using digital technologies to make every minute spent in the physical laboratory more effective. But the virtual can never replace the real.

The crisis should not become an excuse for stripping scientific education of its experimental core. Instead, it should serve as a catalyst for rethinking it with greater creativity and rigour. The future of Science and Research in Portugal will depend, to a significant extent, on the hands currently being trained at laboratory benches. We cannot allow those hands to do nothing more than click.

José A. Brito
Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology and Life Sciences

Source: Jornal Sol