Concept Studio
See the idea. Put it to the test.
956 activities from Kindergarten to Year 12, in 13 subject areas. A practical gives the idea, what you need, the steps, what you should see and a safety card. A teacher-led demonstration gives the idea and its hazards; its method is for tutors on the learning platform.
Review
Reviewed before publication (owner’s confirmation, 24 September 2026). That covers every activity here, and a practical’s page lists the sources its author read.
A safety card on every page
The risk, who supervises and the hazards. The 38 teacher-led demonstrations show their idea and hazards here; their materials, steps and sources, and any result, control or note that states a number or an amount, are for tutors and administrators on the learning platform.
School laboratory, not for home
207 activities are medium or high risk. Each says so on its page: In a school laboratory, with a teacher supervising, under the school's risk assessment. Not for home.
Curriculum references
Each activity lists the NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes it supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.
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60 activities
Chemistry 11–12 · page 1 of 2
A circus of reaction types: synthesis, decomposition, combustion, precipitation, acid-base and acid-carbonate
Chemical change shows itself as a new substance with new properties (a gas, a precipitate, a colour change, a temperature change or light), and each reaction type has a predictable product pattern.
PracticalMedium riskA spontaneous endothermic reaction: barium hydroxide octahydrate with ammonium chloride (teacher demonstration)
A reaction can run on its own while absorbing heat because the large increase in entropy (solids to a slush of ions, water and ammonia gas) outweighs the enthalpy cost.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskBoyle's law and Charles's law with a sealed syringe, pressure sensor and water bath
For a fixed amount of gas, pressure times volume is constant at fixed temperature, and volume is proportional to absolute temperature at fixed pressure; both are limits of PV = nRT.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBuilding a metal activity series from reactions with water, dilute acid, oxygen and metal-ion solutions
Metals can be ranked by how readily they give up electrons; a more active metal displaces a less active metal from solution and reacts faster with acid.
PracticalMedium riskBurning magnesium in a crucible: mass gain and the empirical formula of magnesium oxide
Elements combine in a fixed whole-number mole ratio; the mass of oxygen gained by a weighed strip of magnesium gives that ratio directly.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskCalorimetry of ethanol combustion: measuring the enthalpy of combustion and explaining the shortfall
The heat released by burning a weighed mass of fuel is captured by a known mass of water; the enthalpy of combustion per mole follows, and the gap from the accepted value measures heat loss.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskCatalysts for the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide: manganese(IV) oxide, potassium iodide and catalase
A catalyst speeds a reaction by providing a pathway with a lower activation energy and is left unchanged; different catalysts lower the barrier by different amounts.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskClassifying substances as ionic, covalent molecular, covalent network or metallic by conductivity and melting behaviour
Whether a substance conducts as a solid, as a melt and in water, and how readily it melts, follows from the kind of particles and bonds it contains.
PracticalMedium riskComparing the specific heat capacities of aluminium and copper by the method of mixtures
Equal masses of different substances heated through the same temperature change store different amounts of energy, and the specific heat capacity in q = m c delta T measures that difference.
Practical, model not builtLow riskConservation of mass: vinegar and sodium hydrogen carbonate in an open cup and a capped bottle, and a precipitation on the balance
Mass is conserved in every chemical reaction; an apparent loss in an open system is the mass of gas that left, which the balanced equation predicts.
Practical, model not builtLow riskFlame tests of metal ions and the line-spectrum model of energy levels
Each metal ion emits its own colour because electrons drop between discrete energy levels; the emitted wavelengths are fixed for that element.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskGalvanic cells with a salt bridge: measuring and predicting cell potentials
A spontaneous redox reaction split into two half-cells drives electrons through a wire; the measured voltage is the difference between the two half-cells' reduction potentials.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskHeating hydrated copper(II) sulfate: water of crystallisation and the molar mass of a compound
The mass lost on heating a hydrate is the water of crystallisation, and the mole ratio of water to anhydrous salt fixes the formula and the molar mass.
PracticalMedium riskHess's law: the enthalpy of hydration of copper(II) sulfate from two dissolution measurements
An enthalpy change that cannot be measured directly is found by combining changes along another route, because enthalpy change depends only on the start and end states.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskMagnesium and hydrochloric acid in an inverted burette: whole-number mole ratio and the molar volume of a gas
One mole of magnesium releases one mole of hydrogen, and the volume of that gas at the room's temperature and pressure gives the molar volume.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskMagnesium in hydrochloric acid: gas volume against time, surface area and concentration
The gradient of a volume-time graph is the reaction rate; it is steepest at the start, falls as reactant is used up, and rises with surface area and acid concentration.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskPredicting and building molecular shapes with Lewis diagrams, VSEPR and model kits
Electron domains around a central atom spread as far apart as possible, so counting bonding pairs and lone pairs predicts a molecule's shape, and the shape with the bond polarities decides whether the molecule is polar.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPreparing a 0.100 mol/L sodium carbonate standard solution and a tenfold dilution
A standard solution has a concentration known from a weighed primary standard made up to an exact volume, and dilution keeps the number of moles constant while the volume grows.
PracticalLow riskReactivity of Group 1 and Group 2 metals with water down and across the periodic table
Reactivity with water rises down Group 1 (lithium to sodium) and is lower for the Group 2 metals, following the trend in first ionisation energy.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskSeparating a sand, salt and water mixture and finding its percentage composition
A heterogeneous mixture is separated by physical properties (particle size, solubility, boiling point) and the recovered masses give the percentage composition by mass.
PracticalLow riskSimple distillation of salt water: boiling-point plateau and purity of the distillate
A homogeneous mixture is separated by boiling point: the thermometer reads a plateau at the boiling point of the volatile component while the dissolved solid stays behind.
PracticalMedium riskSodium thiosulfate and hydrochloric acid (the disappearing cross): rate against temperature and concentration
Reaction rate rises with concentration because collisions are more frequent, and with temperature because a larger fraction of collisions carry the activation energy.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskTemperature changes on dissolving ionic solids and on burning a fuel: classifying reactions as endothermic or exothermic
Energy released or absorbed by bond changes shows up as a temperature change of the surroundings, measured in an insulated cup and predicted from enthalpy data.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskThe iodine clock: a sharp end point for measuring rate with a data logger
A reaction whose product is masked until a fixed amount of a second reagent is consumed gives a sudden colour change, so the time to that change measures the average rate exactly.
PracticalMedium riskWeighing 50 mL of different gases: Avogadro's law and relative molecular mass from the ideal gas equation
Equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure hold equal numbers of molecules, so the mass of a fixed volume is proportional to the molar mass.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtMedium riskWeighing out 0.100 mol of elements and compounds: a mole display
Equal amounts in moles contain equal numbers of particles but have different masses, because the mass of each particle differs; the molar mass converts one to the other.
PracticalLow riskA calibration line from published atomic absorption data for copper in water
Atomic absorption spectroscopy measures how much light free atoms of one metal remove from a beam at that metal's own wavelength, so a line fitted through standards of known concentration turns a sample's absorbance into a concentration. A school may have no atomic absorption spectrometer, as the NSW Department of Education Module 8 guide recognises, so the standards are prepared by hand and the absorbance readings are taken from published data, which the syllabus allows, since its Module 8 content accepts processing data as well as conducting an investigation.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskAnalysing household substances: the ethanoic acid content of vinegar and a back titration of an antacid tablet
Titration measures the acid or base content of everyday products, with a back titration used when the sample is a solid that reacts slowly or is insoluble.
PracticalLow riskBuilding and naming structural isomers with model kits: alkanes, alkenes, alcohols, esters
The same molecular formula can be assembled into different carbon skeletons or functional groups, and each arrangement is a distinct compound with its own IUPAC name and properties.
Practical, model not builtLow riskColourimetry of copper(II) solutions: a calibration curve, the Beer-Lambert law and an unknown from a brass or ore digest
Absorbance is proportional to the concentration of a coloured species, so a calibration line from standards converts the absorbance of an unknown into its concentration; the same principle underlies UV-visible spectrophotometry and atomic absorption spectroscopy.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskComparing properties along the alcohol homologous series: boiling point, evaporative cooling, miscibility and flame
Members of a homologous series differ by one CH2 unit, so properties that depend on dispersion forces change steadily along the series while the functional group's chemistry stays the same.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskComparing the enthalpy of combustion of methanol, ethanol, propan-1-ol and butan-1-ol by calorimetry
Each CH2 unit added to an alcohol adds a nearly constant amount of combustion energy per mole, and the energy per gram rises along the series as the oxygen fraction falls.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskDehydration of ethanol to ethene over a hot catalyst, with the gas tested by bromine water (teacher demonstration)
Heating ethanol vapour over a solid catalyst removes water and forms an alkene, and the collected gas decolourises bromine water where ethanol vapour does not.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskFermentation of glucose by yeast: tracking carbon dioxide loss on a balance and testing for ethanol
Yeast enzymes convert glucose to ethanol and carbon dioxide; the mass lost from an open flask over days is the carbon dioxide, and the stoichiometry sets the maximum yield.
Practical, model not builtLow riskGravimetric analysis of the sulfate content of a lawn fertiliser or water sample as barium sulfate
Precipitating an ion completely as an insoluble compound of known formula, then drying and weighing it, gives the ion's mass in the original sample.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskIdentifying anions in solution: the eight syllabus anions by acid, silver, barium and iron(III) tests
Anions are identified by which cation precipitates them, the colour of the precipitate and whether it dissolves in acid or ammonia, with gas tests for carbonate and hydroxide.
PracticalMedium riskIdentifying the eight cations of the 2017 syllabus by flame and precipitation tests
Each cation gives a fixed pattern of flame colour, precipitate colour and solubility in excess reagent, so a short sequence of tests identifies which of the eight is present.
PracticalMedium riskLe Chatelier's principle with iron(III) thiocyanate: adding and removing ions, and heating
Adding a reactant deepens the colour and removing one fades it, showing that the position of equilibrium moves to counter each change in concentration.
PracticalMedium riskLe Chatelier's principle with the cobalt(II) chloride and chloride equilibrium: concentration and temperature
When an equilibrium is disturbed by adding a reactant or by heating, the position shifts to oppose the change; the direction of the colour change reveals the sign of the enthalpy change.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskMaking esters from alcohols and carboxylic acids with a sulfuric acid catalyst and identifying them by smell
A carboxylic acid and an alcohol condense with loss of water to form an ester; the catalyst speeds the equilibrium and the product is recognised by its characteristic odour and insolubility.
PracticalMedium riskMaking soap from castor oil and sodium hydroxide, and comparing soap and a synthetic detergent in hard water
Alkaline hydrolysis of a triglyceride gives glycerol and the sodium salts of fatty acids, whose ionic head and hydrocarbon tail let them lift grease, while calcium ions in hard water precipitate soap but not detergent.
PracticalMedium riskMeasuring the enthalpy of neutralisation of a strong acid with a strong base, and comparing a weak acid
Neutralisation releases the same heat per mole of water formed for any strong acid with any strong base, because the reaction in every case is hydrogen ion with hydroxide ion.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskMeasuring the equilibrium constant of the iron(III) thiocyanate reaction by colourimetry
The concentration of the coloured complex at equilibrium, read from a calibration curve, fixes the equilibrium constant for a set of mixtures whatever their starting ratio.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskMeasuring the pH of strong and weak acids and bases across three concentrations with a calibrated pH probe
pH depends on both the concentration and the degree of dissociation: a strong acid's pH falls by one unit per tenfold concentration while a weak acid's falls by only half a unit.
Practical, model not builtLow riskModelling dynamic equilibrium by transferring water between two cylinders with tubes of different diameter
When a forward and a reverse process run at the same time, the amounts stop changing once the two rates are equal, not when the amounts are equal, and the final ratio is set by the ratio of the rate constants.
Practical, model not builtLow riskNitrogen dioxide and dinitrogen tetroxide in sealed tubes: the effect of temperature and pressure on a gas equilibrium
A brown gas in equilibrium with its colourless dimer pales when cooled and darkens when warmed, and compression shifts it towards the dimer, so the compressed gas ends less dark than its higher concentration alone would make it: temperature and pressure both shift a gas-phase equilibrium.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtHigh riskOne molar hydrochloric acid against one molar ethanoic acid: conductivity, pH and rate with magnesium and marble
Two acids of the same concentration differ in hydrogen ion concentration if one is only partly dissociated, and the difference shows in conductivity, pH and reaction rate but not in the amount of base needed to neutralise them.
PracticalMedium riskOxidising primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols with an acidified oxidant and identifying the products
A primary alcohol oxidises to an aldehyde and then a carboxylic acid, a secondary alcohol to a ketone, and a tertiary alcohol not at all, so the oxidant's colour change and the product's tests sort the three classes.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh risk
For tutors and administrators
The materials and steps of every teacher-led demonstration are on the learning platform, with the safety card first. Sign in with a tutor or administrator account to read them.