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 8 of 20
Motion of a cart on an inclined plane (syllabus practical)
On a slope the weight component along the incline, less friction, sets a constant acceleration that can be predicted from the angle and checked by measurement.
Practical, model not builtLow riskNewton's second law: constant net force on a cart with hanging masses
A fixed hanging mass applies a constant net force to a cart-and-mass system, and the measured acceleration is proportional to that force and inversely proportional to the total mass.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPitch and loudness against frequency and amplitude with a sound recorder (syllabus practical)
Pitch is the ear's response to frequency and loudness to amplitude, and a recorded waveform makes both measurable.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRate of energy conversion in a circuit: heating water with a resistance coil
Electrical power is the product of voltage and current, and in a resistor it appears as heat at the rate I squared R.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskReflection and diffraction of sound: the echo method and hearing around a barrier
Sound reflects from a large hard surface as a delayed copy of the original pulse, which times its own speed, and it spreads past edges and through openings by an amount set by the ratio of its wavelength to the size of the obstacle.
Practical, model not builtLow riskReflection, refraction, diffraction and superposition in a ripple tank
Water waves change direction at barriers and depth changes, spread through gaps and add where they overlap, and each behaviour follows from the wave's speed and wavelength.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRefraction and total internal reflection with a semicircular perspex prism and ray box (syllabus practical)
Light bends at a boundary because its speed changes, and the ratio of the sines of the angles is the refractive index, which also sets the critical angle.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRelative motion: two toy cars on video, a boat crossing a river and an aeroplane in a crosswind
Velocities add as vectors, so the motion of an object relative to the ground is the vector sum of its velocity relative to the medium and the medium's velocity.
Practical, model not builtLow riskResonance in a closed pipe: speed of sound with a tuning fork (syllabus practical)
A column of air closed at one end resonates when its length is an odd number of quarter wavelengths, which fixes the speed of sound from a known frequency.
Practical, model not builtLow riskResonance in mechanical systems: driven pendulums and resonant rings (syllabus practical)
A system driven near its natural frequency absorbs energy each cycle and builds a large amplitude, while driving well above or below that frequency produces little response.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRolling resistance of a toy car from its stopping distance
Work done against rolling resistance removes the car's kinetic energy over its stopping distance, so speed and distance give the resistive force.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSeries and parallel circuits: current and voltage rules from measurements
Charge is conserved at every junction and energy is conserved around every loop, which gives the current and voltage rules for series and parallel resistors.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSound intensity against distance: the inverse square law with a phone sound meter
Energy from a small source spreads over a sphere whose area grows with the square of the distance, so intensity falls as one over distance squared.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSpecific heat capacity by electrical heating: water and an aluminium cylinder
A measured electrical energy input raises the temperature of a known mass by an amount fixed by the material's specific heat capacity.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskStanding waves on a string with a vibration generator (progressive against standing waves) (syllabus practical)
A wave reflected from a fixed end superposes with the incoming wave to give a standing pattern whose allowed frequencies depend on length, tension and mass per unit length.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe Doppler effect with a swung buzzer and a phone frequency meter
A source moving towards a listener crowds its wavefronts and raises the received frequency; moving away spreads them and lowers it.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe inverse square law for light with a phone light meter (syllabus practical)
Light from a small source spreads over an expanding sphere, so illuminance on a surface falls with the square of the distance.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA dry-ice cloud chamber: seeing tracks of alpha particles and cosmic-ray muons
A charged particle ionises the supersaturated alcohol vapour along its path and makes a visible trail, whose thickness and length tell alpha, beta and muon tracks apart.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalMedium riskAlpha, beta and gamma radiation: penetration and deflection with sealed sources
The three radiations differ in charge, mass and energy, so paper stops alpha, a few millimetres of aluminium stops beta, and gamma needs centimetres of lead.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskArago's disc: a rotating magnetic field dragging an aluminium disc
A magnetic field moving relative to a solid conductor induces closed loops of current in it, and the force on those currents drags the conductor after the field without any contact, which is the principle of the induction motor and of the eddy-current brake.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskBlack body radiation and Wien's law: a dimmed filament and the solar spectrum peak
A hot body radiates a continuous spectrum whose peak wavelength shifts to shorter values as temperature rises, in inverse proportion to the temperature.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBuilding a simple DC motor and running it backwards as a generator
A current loop in a magnetic field feels a torque that turns it, and the same coil turned by hand produces an alternating emf that a commutator can rectify.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCathode rays in Crookes tubes: Maltese cross, paddle wheel and magnetic deflection
Cathode rays travel in straight lines, carry momentum and are deflected by magnetic and electric fields as negative particles, the evidence that led to the electron.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalHigh riskCentripetal acceleration on a turntable measured with a phone accelerometer
At a fixed rotation rate the centripetal acceleration grows in proportion to the radius and points towards the axis.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCentripetal force against mass, speed and radius with a whirling rubber stopper (syllabus practical)
An object moving in a circle needs a net force towards the centre equal to m v squared over r, which a hanging weight supplies through a string.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskCharged particles in a uniform electric field: deflection tube and projectile comparison
A uniform electric field gives a charged particle a constant acceleration, so its path between plates is a parabola like a projectile's, and the work done is q V.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtHigh riskCharged particles in a uniform magnetic field: circular paths in a fine-beam tube
A magnetic force acts at right angles to a charge's velocity, so it changes direction but not speed and bends the path into a circle of radius m v over q B.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtHigh riskDe Broglie matter waves: electron diffraction rings and the wavelength of an accelerated electron
Electrons passed through a crystal form diffraction rings whose size shrinks as the accelerating voltage rises, exactly as a wave of wavelength h over m v would.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtHigh riskDiffraction of laser light through slits, a thin wire and a grating (qualitative) (syllabus practical)
Light passing an edge or a narrow opening spreads and forms a pattern of bright and dark bands, which only a wave model explains.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskElectromagnetic induction: magnet and coil, and Lenz's law with a magnet falling through a copper tube
A changing magnetic flux through a coil induces an emf proportional to the rate of change, in a direction that opposes the change producing it.
Practical, model not builtLow riskForce between two parallel current-carrying wires
Each wire sits in the field of the other, so parallel currents attract and antiparallel currents repel with a force per length proportional to the product of the currents over the separation.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskForces in circular motion: conical pendulum and a car on a banked bend
On a banked surface or a slanted string, the horizontal component of the normal force or tension supplies the centripetal force, which fixes the speed for a given angle.
Practical, model not builtLow riskHalf-life with dice and a decay simulation
Each unstable nucleus has a fixed chance of decaying per unit time, so a large sample loses a constant fraction in each half-life however many remain.
Practical, model not builtLow riskKepler's third law from planetary data
For every body orbiting the same central mass, the cube of the orbital radius divided by the square of the period is the same constant, fixed by the central mass.
Calculation and dataLow riskMalus's law with two polarising filters and a phone light meter (syllabus practical)
Light is a transverse wave whose electric field can be filtered to one direction, and the transmitted intensity through a second filter falls with the square of the cosine of the angle between them.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMass defect and binding energy: the deuteron from measured masses
A nucleus weighs less than its separated nucleons, and the missing mass times c squared is the energy that holds it together and the energy released when it forms.
Calculation and dataLow riskMeasuring a laser's wavelength with a double slit and a diffraction grating (quantitative) (syllabus practical)
Bright fringes appear where the path difference from two sources is a whole number of wavelengths, so the fringe geometry gives the wavelength.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskModelling a fission chain reaction with dominoes, mousetraps and a simulation
Each fission releases neutrons that can trigger further fissions, so the number of events per generation multiplies unless enough neutrons are absorbed or escape.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskModelling Millikan's oil drop experiment: quantised charge from blind mass measurements
Charges on oil drops come in whole multiples of one unit, found by balancing a drop's weight against an electric force and looking for the common factor in the results.
Practical, model not builtLow riskModelling the expanding Universe with elastic and markers, and Hubble's law from galaxy data
If space expands uniformly, every galaxy recedes from every other at a speed proportional to its distance, and 1 over the constant of proportionality, the Hubble time, is how long the expansion would have taken at today's rate.
Practical, model not builtLow riskProjectile motion: primary data from a ball leaving a bench and a spring launcher (syllabus practical)
A projectile's horizontal velocity stays constant while its vertical velocity changes at g, so range and time of flight follow from the launch conditions.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRolling with Rutherford: finding a hidden target's size from marble scattering
Firing probes at an unseen target and counting deflections reveals the target's size, the reasoning that turned alpha-particle scattering into the nuclear atom.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSpectra from discharge tubes, an incandescent filament and reflected sunlight with a hand spectroscope (syllabus practical)
Hot dense sources give a continuous spectrum, low-pressure gases energised by an electric discharge give bright lines unique to each element, and the Sun shows dark absorption lines on a continuous background.
Teacher-led demonstrationPracticalMedium riskSpeed of light from the standing waves in a microwave oven (syllabus practical)
Microwaves are light of long wavelength; inside an oven they form standing waves whose hot spots sit half a wavelength apart, so the spacing and the oven's stated frequency give the speed of light.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe Balmer series: measuring hydrogen's visible lines with a diffraction grating
Hydrogen emits only certain wavelengths because its electron drops between fixed energy levels, and the Rydberg formula predicts every visible line.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtMedium riskThe Hertzsprung-Russell diagram from real star data, with spectral classes
Plotting luminosity against surface temperature sorts stars into a main sequence, giants and white dwarfs, and the position of a star reveals its size and its stage of life.
Calculation and dataLow riskThe motor effect measured on a digital balance: force on a current-carrying wire
A conductor carrying current across a magnetic field feels a force proportional to the current, the field and the length in the field, at right angles to both.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe photoelectric effect: stopping-voltage simulation and a bench estimate of Planck's constant from LEDs
Light delivers energy in packets proportional to frequency, so electrons leave a metal only above a threshold frequency and their maximum energy grows with frequency, not intensity.
Teacher-led demonstrationPractical, model not builtMedium 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.