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 5 of 20
Insulation: cooling curves for cups wrapped in different materials
Thermal energy escapes from a hot object faster when the temperature difference is larger, and an insulating layer slows the transfer so the cooling curve flattens.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskIron and sulfur: a mixture you can un-mix and a compound you cannot
Two elements mixed keep their own properties and can be separated, but once they react the compound formed has new properties and the elements can no longer be pulled apart physically.
PracticalMedium riskIsostasy: pieces of wood floating in water and in syrup
Crust floats on the denser mantle the way wood floats on water: a thicker or lighter piece stands higher and has a deeper root, which is why continents stand above the ocean floor and why crust thickened where plates converge rises as mountain ranges with deep roots.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLeaf surface temperature: transpiration as evaporative cooling
Evaporation removes heat from the surface it leaves, so a transpiring leaf runs cooler than one whose stomata are sealed, the same physics that makes sweating cool skin.
PracticalLow riskLocating an epicentre from S minus P times at three stations
P waves outrun S waves, so the gap between their arrivals grows with distance; three distances drawn as circles cross at the epicentre.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMaking and testing three gases: hydrogen, oxygen and carbon dioxide
A gas produced in a reaction is a new substance, and each gas has a test that identifies it.
PracticalMedium riskMaking conglomerate and sandstone: cement, compaction and time
Loose sediment becomes rock when a cement grows in the pores between grains, a process the class can run in days that nature runs over millions of years.
PracticalLow riskMarble on a ramp: release height, speed at the bottom and the distance a cup is pushed
The higher a ball starts on a ramp, the more gravitational potential energy it stores and the more kinetic energy it has at the bottom, which shows up as a faster ball and a further-pushed cup.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeasuring with a microscope: field of view, magnification and a scale bar
The width of the field of view is a known length at each objective, so the size of a cell can be estimated by counting how many fit across it.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMetal or non-metal: testing lustre, conductivity and malleability
Elements can be sorted as metals or non-metals by testing physical properties, and a few elements such as graphite and silicon break the pattern, which is why the classification rests on several properties rather than one.
PracticalLow riskMineral identification: hardness, streak, lustre, cleavage and acid
Each mineral has fixed physical properties, so a short set of tests separates minerals that look alike and shows why rocks made of them behave differently.
PracticalMedium riskPhysical or chemical change: evidence from seven small changes
A chemical change makes a new substance, shown by a new colour, a gas, a solid or an energy change that cannot be undone by a physical method, while after a physical change the same substance remains in a new form.
PracticalLow riskPlant and animal cells: onion epidermis and cheek cells side by side
Plant cells have a wall and a regular shape while animal cells do not, and both have a nucleus and membrane visible after staining.
PracticalMedium riskPlasmolysis in red onion cells: the membrane pulls away from the wall and returns
The cell membrane controls what passes into and out of a plant cell while the cell wall keeps its shape: in a strong salt solution water passes out of the cell, so the membrane and the purple vacuole shrink away from the wall, and in pure water they swell back.
PracticalLow riskPlate boundaries in a box: folds, thrusts and a spreading ridge with transform offsets
Pushing layers together folds and thrusts them upward (convergent), pulling paper out of slits models new sea floor forming at a ridge (divergent), and the offsets between slits behave as transform faults.
PracticalLow riskPlotting recent earthquakes and volcanoes to find the plate boundaries
Earthquakes and volcanoes are not scattered at random; plotted on a map they trace narrow belts, and those belts are the plate boundaries.
PracticalLow riskPondweed and light: oxygen bubbles against lamp distance
Photosynthesis in the chloroplasts of a water plant releases oxygen, and the rate of release falls as the lamp moves further away and less light reaches the plant.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPorosity and permeability of gravel, sand and clay
Porosity is how much water a sediment can hold and permeability is how fast it lets water through; both come from the size and packing of the grains, which is why an aquifer is sand or gravel and clay seals it.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPotato cylinders in sugar solutions: mass change across a concentration series
Plant cells take in water through the cell membrane from a dilute solution and lose it to a concentrated one, so potato cylinders gain mass in water and lose it in strong sugar solution, and one concentration in between gives no change.
PracticalLow riskRadiation: matt black against shiny cans heating under a lamp and cooling in air
Dull dark surfaces absorb and emit radiated energy faster than shiny light ones, so a black can warms faster under a lamp and cools faster afterwards.
PracticalMedium riskRiver in a gutter: erosion, transport and deposition
Flowing water erodes, carries and drops sediment according to its speed, so a steeper or fuller channel moves larger grains and a slowing flow builds fans and deltas.
PracticalLow riskRubber-band car: elastic potential energy transformed into motion
Energy stored in a stretched rubber band is transformed into kinetic energy of the car and then into thermal energy through friction, so more winding stores more energy and drives the car further.
PracticalLow riskSediment settling in a jar: sorting, layers and Stokes' law
Grains settle at speeds set by their size, so one stirred mixture lays down a graded bed with the coarsest grains at the base, the pattern that lets a geologist read which way up a rock was deposited.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSee how they run: lava viscosity, temperature and added sand
Hotter and less silica-rich lava is runnier, flows further and builds broad shield volcanoes; cooler, stickier lava builds steep cones and can trap gas until it explodes.
PracticalLow riskSheep heart dissection: chambers, valves and the thickness of the walls
The structure of each part of the heart matches its job: the left ventricle wall is thickest because it pumps blood to the whole body, and one-way valves keep the flow in one direction.
PracticalMedium riskSorting a rock kit into igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic
How a rock formed is written in its texture: interlocking crystals from cooling melt, cemented grains or layers from deposited sediment, and aligned bands or sheets from heat and pressure.
PracticalMedium riskSplitting water: two volumes of hydrogen to one of oxygen
Water is a compound of two elements in a fixed ratio; an electric current decomposes it and the 2 : 1 gas volumes match the formula H2O.
PracticalLow riskStomatal density: counting pores on the two faces of a leaf
Stomata are the pores through which a leaf exchanges gases and loses water, and their number per square millimetre can be measured from an impression and a calibrated field of view.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTesting a variegated leaf for starch: where photosynthesis happens
Starch is made only in the parts of a leaf that hold chloroplasts and have had light, so the iodine test maps where photosynthesis occurred.
PracticalMedium riskTranspiration with a straw potometer: water uptake against air movement
Water that evaporates from a shoot is replaced by water drawn up the stem, so the rise of the lower end of the water column in a narrow straw measures how fast the shoot takes up water, which closely tracks transpiration.
PracticalLow riskWarmer or colder: measuring the energy change of four reactions
A chemical reaction transfers energy to or from its surroundings, so the temperature of the mixture rises (exothermic) or falls (endothermic).
PracticalMedium riskWater transport in celery: dye rising through the xylem
Water travels up a celery stalk through xylem vessels, and the rate depends on how fast the leaves lose water.
PracticalLow riskWhat a burning candle makes: testing for water and carbon dioxide
Burning is a chemical reaction with oxygen that produces new substances, and the products of a hydrocarbon flame can be caught and identified.
PracticalMedium riskWhat makes iron rust: nails in air, water, both and neither
Rusting is a slow chemical change that needs both oxygen and water, and a controlled comparison shows which conditions matter.
PracticalLow riskYeast respiration: carbon dioxide output against temperature
Living cells release carbon dioxide as they respire sugar, and the rate depends on temperature.
PracticalLow riskAsexual reproduction by cuttings: rooting success as an investigation
A piece of a plant can grow into a complete, genetically identical plant, and the conditions that favour rooting can be tested with a controlled comparison.
PracticalLow riskBell in a vacuum jar: sound needs a medium (teacher demonstration)
A ringing bell becomes almost inaudible as the air is pumped out of the jar around it, because sound needs particles to pass the vibration along.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskBeyond the visible: Herschel's infrared experiment and a remote seen on a phone camera
Sunlight carries energy in radiation beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, so a blackened thermometer just past the red edge still warms, and a phone camera shows the invisible infrared flash of a remote control.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBurning magnesium in a crucible: the mass goes up
Mass is conserved in a reaction, so when magnesium combines with oxygen from the air the solid product weighs more than the metal by the mass of oxygen it took in.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskCarbon dioxide into water: acidity, and why seawater resists it
Carbon dioxide dissolves in water and lowers its pH; water carrying dissolved hydrogencarbonate, as seawater does, resists the change, which is how the ocean takes up a large share of emitted carbon dioxide while slowly becoming less alkaline.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskCarbon locked in shells and limestone: carbonate and acid on a balance
Shells, coral and limestone store carbon as calcium carbonate; acid releases it as carbon dioxide, and the mass the flask loses on a balance measures how much carbon the sample held.
PracticalMedium riskCauliflower cloning: tissue culture under aseptic conditions
A tiny piece of plant tissue on a sterile nutrient medium can regenerate a whole plant, because its cells keep the full set of instructions; micropropagation, the technology built on this, is used by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to clone endangered plants and in commercial crop propagation.
PracticalMedium riskConservation of mass in an open flask and a sealed bottle
The total mass of reactants equals the total mass of products; an apparent loss in an open container is the mass of gas that left.
Practical, model not builtLow riskConverging lens: forming a real image on a screen and finding the focal length
A converging lens brings light to a focus, and a more strongly curved lens focuses closer to the lens. An object beyond the focal point forms a real, inverted image on a screen, and as the object is brought closer to the focal point the image moves further from the lens and grows larger.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDoppler effect: a buzzer swung on a cord, recorded on a phone
A sound source moving toward a listener is heard at a higher frequency and one moving away at a lower frequency, because the waves are bunched up ahead of the source and stretched behind it.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskEfficiency of an electric motor lifting a load
Only part of the electrical energy supplied to a motor becomes gravitational potential energy of the load; the rest becomes thermal energy in the windings and bearings, and the ratio is the efficiency.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEnergy audit: power and energy use of household appliances on a plug-in meter
An appliance transforms electrical energy at a rate given by its power, so energy used equals power multiplied by time and can be measured, costed and compared with the rating label.
PracticalMedium riskFlower dissection: male and female parts and the ovules inside
A flower is a reproductive organ whose parts are arranged for pollen transfer and fertilisation, and its structure can be read from the outside in.
PracticalLow 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.