Lab
See the idea. Put it to the test.
956 practicals from Kindergarten to Year 12, in 9 subjects. A practical gives the idea, what you need, the steps, what you should see and a safety card. A teacher-led practical 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 practical 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 practicals 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 practicals 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 practical lists the NSW syllabus outcomes and Australian Curriculum v9 codes it supports. They are references, not a verified or complete curriculum alignment.
Find a practical
16 practicals
Science 7–10 · Physics · Waves, sound and light
Bell 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 practicalPracticalHigh 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 riskHot things glow: a dimmed lamp, the Sun and the cosmic microwave background
Any hot object gives out a continuous spectrum whose peak wavelength is inversely proportional to its temperature, which is why a dimmed lamp glows red, the Sun peaks in visible light and the 2.7 K glow left from the early universe peaks in microwaves.
Practical, model not builtLow risk
For tutors and administrators
The materials and steps of every teacher-led practical are on the learning platform, with the safety card first. Sign in with a tutor or administrator account to read them.