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 6 of 20
Generating electricity: a magnet moving through a coil and a hand-cranked generator
A generator produces electrical energy only while something keeps a magnet and a coil moving past each other, and the mechanical work done turning it is transformed into the electrical energy the circuit uses; power stations produce electricity the same way, with steam, wind or falling water doing the turning.
PracticalLow riskGetting a metal from its oxide: heating copper(II) oxide with charcoal
Carbon is more reactive than copper, so heating copper(II) oxide with charcoal removes the oxygen and copper metal remains, the reaction behind extracting metals from their ores.
PracticalMedium riskHeating metal carbonates: which ones break down, and by how much
A decomposition reaction turns one compound into simpler substances; heating some metal carbonates breaks them down into a metal oxide and carbon dioxide, and how easily they break down follows the reactivity of the metal.
PracticalMedium riskHeating water with an immersion heater: electrical energy in against thermal energy gained
The electrical energy supplied to a heater (V x I x t) sets the thermal energy the water can gain (m x c x change in T), and the shortfall measures energy transferred to the surroundings.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskInvoluntary responses: the knee-jerk reflex and the pupil reflex
Some responses bypass conscious control: the knee-jerk kick follows the tap too fast to feel as a delay because the pathway runs through the spinal cord, and the iris adjusts the pupil to light without any decision being made.
PracticalLow riskLaw of reflection: ray box and plane mirror
Light reflects from a flat mirror so that the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence, both measured from the normal.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMagnesium in acid: predicting the volume of hydrogen before you collect it
A reaction between a metal and an acid makes a salt and hydrogen, and the mass of metal fixes the volume of gas, so a prediction can be tested.
PracticalMedium riskMaking a salt: copper(II) sulfate crystals from copper oxide and sulfuric acid
An insoluble base neutralises an acid to make a soluble salt and water; using an excess of the base and filtering it off gives a pure salt solution from which crystals of the salt can be grown.
PracticalMedium riskMeasuring the speed of sound: echoes from a wall and two phones with acoustic stopwatches
Sound travels at a finite, measurable speed in air, about a third of a kilometre each second, which can be found from the time a clap takes to cover a known distance.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMicroorganisms on hands: sealed agar plates before and after hand hygiene
Hands carry living microorganisms that grow into visible colonies on a nutrient surface, and hand hygiene reduces how many are transferred without sterilising the skin.
PracticalMedium riskNeutralisation: how the pH changes as acid is added to an alkali
Adding an acid to an alkali neutralises it: the pH falls only slowly at first, then very sharply at the point where the alkali has just been used up, and an indicator shows that point as a sudden colour change.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskOhm's law: current against voltage for two fixed resistors
For a metal resistor at steady temperature the current is proportional to the voltage across it, and the constant ratio V / I is its resistance, so a larger resistance lets less current through at the same voltage.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPinhole camera: a model of how the eye forms an inverted image
Rays from each point of an object travel in straight lines through a small opening and cross there, so the image on the screen is inverted and its size depends on the distances. The eye forms its image on the retina in the same way, with the pupil as the opening and the lens gathering enough light to keep the image bright and sharp.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPitch and loudness: measuring frequency and amplitude with a phone spectrum app
The pitch of a sound is set by its frequency and the loudness by its amplitude, and both can be read from a microphone trace.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPollen tube growth on a slide: watching the step before fertilisation
A pollen grain grows a tube toward the ovule when it lands on a suitable surface, and that growth can be watched and measured on a slide within a double lesson.
PracticalLow riskPulse and breathing rate before and after exercise: body systems responding together
When muscles work harder, the nervous system raises heart rate and breathing rate together, so the circulatory and respiratory systems deliver more oxygen and carry away the extra carbon dioxide the muscles produce; when exercise stops, both rates fall back toward resting over several minutes.
PracticalLow riskRadioactive dating with dice: half-life as a rule, not a clock
Each unstable atom has a fixed chance of decaying in a given time, so the number left halves every half-life; counting the parent left in a mineral against the daughter formed gives the rock's age.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRadioactive decay with 100 dice: chance, half-life and the decay curve
Each unstable nucleus decays at random with a fixed chance per unit time, so a large sample loses a constant fraction in each equal interval and the count falls along a curve with a constant half-life.
Practical, model not builtLow riskReaction time by the ruler drop: from catch distance to milliseconds
A response to a stimulus takes measurable time because the signal must travel from receptor to brain to muscle, and that time can be calculated from how far a ruler falls before it is caught.
Practical, model not builtLow riskReading the carbon dioxide record: Kennaook / Cape Grim and Mauna Loa
Two long records of carbon dioxide in clean air show the same accelerating rise, and a yearly wave from plant growth that is large at Mauna Loa in the northern hemisphere and small at Cape Grim in Tasmania.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRed cabbage indicator: reading acids and bases by colour
An indicator is a substance whose colour depends on how acidic or basic a solution is, so it turns the invisible property of pH into something a learner can see and rank.
PracticalLow riskRefraction: tracing a ray through a rectangular glass slab
Light bends toward the normal when it slows on entering glass and away from the normal when it leaves, so a ray that passes through a parallel-sided slab comes out parallel to the ray that went in but shifted sideways.
Practical, model not builtLow riskResistance of a wire: how it changes with length
The resistance of a uniform wire is proportional to its length, because each extra centimetre adds the same opposition to the flow of charge.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRipple tank: reflection at a barrier and refraction into shallow water
Water waves reflect from a barrier at the same angle they arrive and change speed and direction when they cross into shallower water, the same behaviours that light shows at mirrors and glass.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRutherford's gold-foil experiment as a rolling-ball model of the nucleus
Most of an atom is empty space with a tiny, dense, positively charged nucleus, because most alpha particles pass straight through a foil and a very few bounce back.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSeries and parallel circuits: measuring current and voltage with one, two and three lamps
Adding lamps in series shares the supply voltage and lowers the current, while adding lamps in parallel gives each the full voltage and raises the total current drawn; the supply gives each unit of charge a fixed amount of energy, which series lamps share and each parallel branch receives in full.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSlinky waves: transverse and longitudinal pulses, wavelength, frequency and speed
A wave carries energy along a medium while the medium's parts only move about their rest positions, either across the direction of travel (transverse) or along it (longitudinal).
Practical, model not builtLow riskSoil respiration: decomposers returning carbon to the air
Fungi and bacteria in moist soil respire the carbon in dead plant material back into carbon dioxide, so living soil gives carbon to the air while soil heated to kill its microbes gives far less.
PracticalMedium riskSolar cell output against tilt angle and distance from the lamp
A solar cell transforms light energy into electrical energy, so its output depends on how much light energy lands on it each second, which falls as the cell tilts away from the light and as the distance from the source grows.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSound is a vibration: tuning fork in water and dancing sprinkles
Every sound comes from a vibrating source, and the vibration passes through the air to make other objects vibrate.
PracticalLow riskSound through solids, liquids and gases: string telephones, a bench and an underwater tap
Sound travels through any material whose particles can pass on a vibration, and it travels faster and further through solids than through air.
PracticalLow riskThe global carbon budget: where each year's emissions go
Each year's carbon from fossil fuels and land clearing is shared between the atmosphere, the ocean and land plants, so the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide equals emissions minus what the sinks take up.
Calculation and dataLow riskTotal internal reflection: finding the critical angle with a semicircular slab
Light leaving glass for air bends away from the normal, and beyond a certain angle, the critical angle, it cannot leave at all and is entirely reflected inside, which is how optical fibres keep light inside them.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTwo-point discrimination: mapping touch receptor density on the skin
Skin that carries more touch receptors per square centimetre can tell two nearby points apart, so the smallest gap felt as two points measures receptor density.
PracticalLow riskWeighing a flame: how much carbon dioxide a burning candle adds to the air
Combustion moves carbon that was stored for millions of years in petroleum into the air as carbon dioxide, and because oxygen from the air joins it, the carbon dioxide produced weighs about three times as much as the wax burned.
PracticalMedium riskWhich antacid neutralises the most acid
A carbonate in an antacid tablet neutralises acid, so the volume of acid a tablet can neutralise before the indicator changes compares how much base different brands contain.
PracticalLow riskWhite light: dispersion by a prism and absorption by colour filters
White light is a mix of colours that a prism spreads out by refracting each wavelength a different amount, and a colour filter transmits its own colour while absorbing the rest.
PracticalLow riskZones of inhibition: comparing antiseptics on a bacterial lawn
A substance that stops bacteria growing leaves a clear ring around a soaked disc on a lawn of bacteria, and the ring's diameter compares how effective each substance is.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalMedium riskAlbedo: how ice, sand, soil and water take up sunlight
Light surfaces such as ice and snow reflect most sunlight while dark land and water absorb it, so when ice melts and exposes darker ground or sea, Earth absorbs more energy and warms further.
PracticalLow riskAverage speed of a battery toy car over measured distances
Speed is the distance travelled divided by the time taken, and a car moving at constant speed covers equal distances in equal times.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBeaks as tools: selective advantage in a changing environment
Small differences in a structure change how much food an individual can gather, and when food changes the trait that gathers more becomes more common in later generations.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCatalysts: manganese dioxide and liver speed up the breakdown of hydrogen peroxide
A catalyst increases the rate of a reaction without being used up, so the same amount of product forms sooner and the catalyst can be recovered.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskChicken wing dissection: homologous bones in a wing and a human arm
A bird wing and a human arm are built on the same pattern of one bone, then two bones, then a group of small bones, although they do different jobs, which is anatomical evidence that tetrapods share a common ancestor.
PracticalMedium riskChlorine, bromine and iodine: reactivity down group 17 by displacement
A more reactive halogen displaces a less reactive one from its salt, so a grid of halogen against halide solutions orders the group.
PracticalMedium riskCoin-toss crosses: why a 3 to 1 ratio only appears in large numbers
Each parent passes one of two alleles at random, so a monohybrid cross between heterozygotes gives a 3 to 1 phenotype ratio on average but not in every small family.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCold, salty water sinks: a tank model of the ocean's deep currents
Water that is colder or saltier is denser and sinks beneath lighter water, which drives the deep ocean circulation that carries heat around the globe.
PracticalLow riskDistance-time graphs: walking in front of a motion sensor (or along floor marks)
The gradient of a distance-time graph is speed, so walking steadily gives a straight line, standing still gives a flat line and walking back gives a falling line.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEarth's energy balance: albedo, the greenhouse effect and surface temperature
Earth's temperature settles where the sunlight it absorbs equals the infrared it gives off; an atmosphere that absorbs and re-emits part of that infrared warms the surface from the 255 K of a bare planet to the observed 288 K.
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.