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.
Find an activity
956 activities
Every subject and year · page 12 of 20
Treating turbid water: coagulation, settling and sand filtration measured by turbidity
Fine suspended particles that will not settle are clumped by a coagulant into flocs that do, and a sand bed traps what is left, the two steps at the heart of a water filtration plant.
PracticalLow riskWater quality of a local creek or pond: pH, conductivity, turbidity, dissolved oxygen and temperature (fieldwork)
A handful of measurable properties show how land use upstream changes a waterway, and comparing them with published guideline values turns observation into evidence.
PracticalMedium riskWhat drives the plates: a pupil model of slab pull, ridge push and mantle drag
A cold, dense slab sinking at a subduction zone pulls the rest of the plate after it, and plate speeds show that this pull matters more than ridge push or mantle drag.
PracticalLow riskWhere the Earth’s water is: a 1000 mL model of oceans, ice, groundwater and rivers
Only a fraction of a per cent of all water is fresh, liquid and at the surface, which is the quantity that people, plants and animals draw on.
PracticalLow riskA scale model of geological time from the International Chronostratigraphic Chart
Almost all of Earth history passed before complex life; a scaled timeline built from the chart’s numerical ages makes the proportions of the eons and the brevity of human time visible.
PracticalLow riskBuilding and testing a simple seismometer
A mass that lags behind a shaking frame records the ground motion, the principle of every seismometer from a pendulum and pen to a digital sensor.
PracticalLow riskComposition of household or school waste: a sorted and weighed audit (syllabus practical)
What goes in the bin is measurable, and the mass fractions of food, paper, plastic, glass and metal decide which management options save the most resources.
PracticalMedium riskFinding microplastics in soil or sediment by density separation
Plastic fragments less dense than saturated salt water float free of sand and mud, so a density separation reveals pollution the eye cannot see and a blank shows how much contamination the method itself adds.
PracticalLow riskFloating ice against land ice: which raises sea level when it melts
Floating ice already displaces its own mass of water, so in fresh water its melting does not change the level, whereas ice resting on land adds new water to the ocean.
PracticalLow riskLiquefaction: saturated sand losing strength when shaken
Shaking raises the water pressure between sand grains until they no longer touch, so saturated ground behaves as a liquid and buildings sink or tilt.
PracticalLow riskLocating an earthquake from S minus P times at three stations
P waves outrun S waves, so the gap between their arrivals at a station gives its distance to the earthquake, and three distances fix the epicentre.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMagma viscosity: flow rate of model lavas and what it means for eruption style
Silica-rich magma is far more viscous than basaltic magma, traps gas and erupts explosively, while runny basalt degasses and flows.
PracticalLow riskMaking mould, cast and trace fossils in clay and plaster
A fossil is usually not the organism but the shape it left, a mould, the filling of that shape, a cast, or the mark of its activity, a trace.
PracticalLow riskMapping a sinking plate: earthquake focus depths across the Java Trench and a mid-ocean ridge
At a convergent boundary earthquake foci deepen with distance from the trench along the sinking slab, while at a divergent boundary they stay shallow, so a depth cross-section maps the boundary’s shape and the depth of its hazard.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMilankovitch cycles by hand: modelling eccentricity, tilt and precession
Slow changes in the Earth’s orbit and axis redistribute sunlight between seasons and hemispheres over tens of thousands of years, pacing the ice ages.
PracticalLow riskOcean acidification: carbon dioxide lowering the pH of water and attacking carbonate shells
Carbon dioxide dissolving in water forms carbonic acid, which lowers pH and dissolves calcium carbonate, the chemistry that threatens shell-building marine life.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOutput of a solar cell against light intensity and angle
A photovoltaic cell’s short-circuit current follows the light it intercepts, so tilt, shading and time of day set the yield of a renewable energy resource.
PracticalLow riskOverharvesting a renewable resource: a fishing model and maximum sustainable yield
A renewable population replaces itself fastest at half its carrying capacity, so a harvest above that maximum sustainable yield drives it to collapse, however large the stock looks at the start.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRunoff from a model catchment: how land cover changes the flood peak
Paving and clearing raise the fraction of rain that runs off at once, so the same storm produces a higher, earlier flood peak from a built-up catchment.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSediment layers in a jar: superposition, grading and reading a sequence
Sediment settles with the oldest layer at the base, coarsest grains first in each pulse, which is the rule that lets a rock sequence be read in order.
PracticalLow riskSlope stability: angle of repose of dry, damp and saturated sediment
Loose material stands only up to its angle of repose, and a little water raises that angle while more water can lower it again, which is part of why heavy rain triggers landslides.
PracticalLow riskStrike, dip and the order of events at an outcrop or road cutting (fieldwork)
Beds are laid down close to horizontal, so a steep measured dip records tilting or folding that came after deposition; with superposition, cross-cutting relationships and unconformities, strike and dip readings put the events at an outcrop in order.
PracticalMedium riskThe greenhouse effect in a bottle, and why the bottle model needs care
Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation and warms the air, but a bottle mostly measures trapped convection, so the practical teaches both the effect and the limits of a physical model.
PracticalLow riskThermal expansion of water: measuring the rise in a flask and scaling to sea level
Warmer water occupies more volume, so a warming ocean rises even before any ice melts, and the effect is measurable in a flask with a narrow tube.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTree rings as climate records: counting, measuring and cross-dating
A tree adds one ring a year whose width follows the growing conditions, so ring sequences from overlapping trees give a dated record of past climate.
PracticalLow riskTsunami speed and water depth in a tray, and the shallow-water wave law
A tsunami is a shallow-water wave whose speed depends on depth alone, so it crosses the deep ocean at aircraft speed and slows, steepens and grows as it reaches the coast.
Practical, model not builtLow riskWind turbine output and wind speed: the cube law and the Betz limit
The power carried by wind rises with the cube of its speed and with the area the blades sweep, and no turbine can capture more than 16/27 of it, which sets where wind farms are worth building.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA draining bottle: testing a mathematical model and refining it
A mathematical model predicts how the water level in a draining container falls; testing it against a real bottle shows where the ideal model fails and how one measured constant repairs it.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA model house: testing wall and window materials for heat loss
A small model house and a heat-loss equation both predict how building materials change indoor temperature, and the model’s limits (scale, no sun, no draughts) are as instructive as its results.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA scale model of the solar system on the school oval
Built to one scale for both sizes and distances, the solar system is specks separated by enormous gaps, something no page diagram can show.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAcids and bases: indicator colour against pH readings in a dilution series
Indicator colour is a qualitative observation and a pH meter reading is a quantitative one; a tenfold dilution raises the pH of a strong acid by one unit but of a weak acid by only about half a unit.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCollecting primary data for the law of conservation of mass
Mass is conserved in every reaction; an apparent gain or loss means matter crossed the boundary of the system, and even a sealed balloon can mislead a balance through buoyancy.
Practical, model not builtLow riskConservation of energy in a pendulum measured with a light gate
The law of conservation of energy predicts a pendulum bob’s speed at the bottom of its swing from the height it was released, whatever its mass.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCounting background radiation: the irregular pattern of random decay
Radioactive decay is random, so counts in equal time intervals scatter irregularly, yet the scatter follows a Poisson distribution in which the variance equals the mean.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDistance and exposure: the inverse square law measured with light
Intensity from a small source falls with the square of the distance, a law whose predictions a measurement can test, and the reason distance from a radiation source is a basic way to reduce exposure.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEnergy transfer in a bounce: tennis ball rebound against the ITF standard
Energy is conserved but not kept as motion: a bouncing ball returns only part of its gravitational energy, and a regulation tennis ball must lose between about 42 and 47 per cent of it in each bounce.
Practical, model not builtLow riskFinding a hidden target with rolling marbles: a model of Rutherford scattering
Like Rutherford’s team, the learner infers the size and shape of something unseen from how often and how projectiles are deflected, and the inference sharpens as the number of trials grows.
Practical, model not builtLow riskFive white solids: identifying chemicals from observations and clues
Colour changes, fizzing and warming are observations; the name of each powder is an inference, and some pairs cannot be told apart with the tests available.
PracticalMedium riskGrowth of radish seedlings watered with saline water
Plant growth falls once the salinity of the water a crop receives passes a threshold, and a class trial infers that threshold from its own data before checking it against published secondary data.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLogging the strata in a rock cutting
A rock face gives qualitative observations (colour, structures) and quantitative ones (bed thickness, grain size, dip), and the principle of superposition turns the measured log into an inferred sequence of events.
PracticalMedium riskMeasuring cells with a calibrated eyepiece graticule
A drawing or description of a cell stays qualitative until the microscope is calibrated; a graticule checked against a stage micrometer turns each observation into a measurement with a stated uncertainty.
PracticalMedium riskMendel’s law of dominance: his counts, a bead model and a chi-square test
Mendel’s law of dominance predicts a 3 : 1 ratio in the second generation; his own counts and a bead model test whether departures from 3 : 1 are within chance.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOhm’s law as a prediction: resistor against filament lamp
A law earns acceptance by predicting results before they are measured: Ohm’s law predicts the current in a resistor, and a filament lamp shows the conditions under which it stops applying.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPredicting the return of Halley’s comet with Kepler’s third law
A pattern of returns about every 76 years led Halley to infer one comet on one orbit; Kepler’s third law turns the orbit’s size into a period, and the spread in real intervals shows what the simple law omits.
Calculation and dataLow riskReactions of calcium carbonate: limewater, carbon dioxide and cave formation
Carbon dioxide first precipitates calcium carbonate from limewater and then redissolves it as calcium hydrogencarbonate; heating drives the gas off and the solid returns, the chemistry that dissolves caves and builds stalactites.
PracticalMedium riskSlaters in a damp and dry choice chamber, with a chi-square test
Counting where animals settle turns a behaviour into quantitative data, and a statistical test shows whether a small sample is enough to support the pattern the eye sees.
PracticalLow riskTesting the assumption that the Sun rises in the east
The Sun rises due east only at the equinoxes; on other dates the rising point swings north or south by an amount set by latitude and the Sun’s declination.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTesting trend models for carbon dioxide on Cape Grim data
Different mathematical models can fit the same past data almost equally well yet predict differently, so a model is judged by how well it predicts data it was not fitted to.
Calculation and dataLow 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.