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
122 practicals
Biology · page 2 of 3
Reaction 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 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 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 practicalPracticalMedium 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 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 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 riskExtracting DNA from a banana or an onion
DNA is a physical substance present in every cell, and it can be released by breaking membranes and made visible by precipitating it in cold alcohol.
PracticalLow riskModelling meiosis with model chromosomes: independent assortment and gamete variety
Meiosis halves the chromosome number and, because each homologous pair lines up independently of the others, one parent can make 2 to the power n different gametes from n chromosome pairs before crossing over is counted.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRoot tip squash: seeing mitosis and counting a mitotic index
New cells arise by mitosis in growing regions, and the fraction of cells caught dividing at any moment can be counted from a stained squash.
PracticalMedium riskSooty selection: camouflage, predation and allele frequencies over generations
Predators remove the individuals they can see, so the colour that matches the background rises in frequency generation by generation, and the direction reverses when the background changes.
Practical, model not builtLow riskVariation in the class: continuous measurements and the myth of single-gene traits
Most human traits vary continuously and depend on many genes and the environment, so class data for tongue rolling or earlobe shape do not fit a single dominant and recessive allele.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAbiotic factors and biotic indicators of a freshwater site
The invertebrates living in a stream or pond reflect its water quality, so a sample of what lives there, taken with abiotic readings, shows how abiotic and biotic factors are linked.
PracticalMedium riskCatalase and hydrogen peroxide: reaction rate against substrate concentration
The rate of an enzyme-catalysed reaction depends on substrate concentration. Many enzymes level off once their active sites are saturated, but catalase breaks down hydrogen peroxide at a rate proportional to its concentration over the range a school can use.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskConditions needed for photosynthesis: starch tests on treated leaves
A leaf stores the product of photosynthesis as starch only in the cells that had chlorophyll, light and carbon dioxide together, so an iodine test maps exactly where photosynthesis happened.
PracticalMedium riskDuckweed population growth: frond counts against the exponential and logistic models
A population with space and nutrients doubles at a fixed interval; as the surface fills, growth slows toward a carrying capacity.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEffect of pH on amylase activity by timed iodine tests
Each enzyme has a pH range in which its active site keeps the shape that fits the substrate; outside that range the rate falls.
PracticalLow riskEffect of temperature on lipase digesting milk fat
Lipase releases fatty acids from fat, so the pH falls as digestion proceeds; the rate rises with temperature until the enzyme denatures.
PracticalMedium riskElastic recoil of artery and vein rings under load
Artery walls stretch and spring back while vein walls stretch and stay stretched, a difference in tissue that matches their different jobs in a closed circulation.
PracticalMedium riskFloating leaf discs: photosynthesis measured by the time discs rise
Leaf discs whose air spaces have been replaced by solution sink, then float again as oxygen from photosynthesis refills the spaces, so the time to float measures the rate.
PracticalLow riskGas exchange of plants and animals in light and dark with hydrogencarbonate indicator
Living things change the carbon dioxide concentration around them: animals always add it, plants remove it in light and add it in the dark.
PracticalMedium riskMammalian gas exchange structures: sheep pluck dissection
Air reaches a vast, thin, moist surface by way of a branching tree of tubes, and the spongy tissue that results is what makes mammalian gas exchange fast enough for an endotherm.
Teacher-led practicalPracticalMedium riskMammalian heart dissection: chambers, valves and wall thickness
A double circulation needs a pump with two sides of unequal strength and one-way valves, and the structure of a real heart shows each of those features.
PracticalMedium riskMeasuring populations with random quadrats, with a mark-recapture estimator
A population too large to count is estimated from random samples: quadrats for organisms that stay put, and marking and recapture for ones that move.
Practical, model not builtLow riskNatural selection by predation: coloured rice with a one-locus selection model
When a predator finds one colour more easily than another, the proportion of the harder-to-see colour rises generation by generation; the same logic in allele terms gives a predictable change in frequency.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOsmosis in potato cylinders across a sucrose concentration series
Water crosses a partially permeable membrane down its own concentration gradient, so tissue gains mass in dilute solutions and loses mass in concentrated ones.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOxygen uptake by germinating seeds in a simple respirometer
Aerobic respiration consumes oxygen; when the carbon dioxide produced is absorbed, the gas volume falls at a rate that measures respiration.
PracticalMedium riskPhotosynthesis in immobilised algae measured by carbon dioxide uptake
Photosynthesising cells remove dissolved carbon dioxide, raising the pH of the surrounding solution, and the colour of a pH indicator tracks the rate.
PracticalLow riskPlasmolysis and recovery in red onion epidermis
In a concentrated salt solution the cytoplasm loses water and the membrane pulls away from the wall; the change reverses when water is returned, showing that osmosis acts across the membrane, not the wall.
PracticalLow riskProkaryotic and eukaryotic cells under the light microscope, with calibrated scale bars
Cells differ in size and internal organisation, and a measured field of view turns a drawing into a scaled record of what is there.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRadiometric dating: dice decay and an age calculator from parent and daughter counts
Each unstable atom has a fixed chance of decaying in a given time, so a large sample halves at a constant interval and the ratio of parent to daughter atoms gives the age of a fossil or rock.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRate of photosynthesis in pondweed against light distance and carbon dioxide
Photosynthesis releases oxygen at a rate set by light and carbon dioxide supply, and light intensity falls with the square of the distance from a lamp.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRestoring degraded soil: earthworm response to a soil improver in a choice chamber
A change to an abiotic factor in soil shifts where soil animals are found, and a choice chamber lets earthworms show which amended soil they prefer or avoid, which decides whether an amendment used to restore degraded soil will be accepted by the soil biota.
PracticalLow riskStomatal density from nail-varnish leaf impressions
Gas exchange in a leaf happens through stomata whose number per square millimetre can be measured from a surface impression and compared between leaf surfaces and species.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSurface-area-to-volume ratio and diffusion into agar cubes
Diffusion supplies a cube only from its surface, so a larger cube has proportionally less surface for each unit of volume and its centre is reached later.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe light-dependent reaction: isolated chloroplasts reducing DCPIP (the Hill reaction)
Chloroplasts in light release electrons from water, and a blue dye that accepts those electrons loses its colour, showing the light-dependent stage of photosynthesis happening outside the living cell.
PracticalLow riskTracing water transport with dye in celery and white flowers, with stem sections
Water travels through xylem vessels, which stain along their length and can be located in a stem section, and adjacent vessels exchange water sideways.
PracticalLow riskUnicellular, colonial and multicellular organisms in pond water by the hanging-drop method
A drop of pond water holds organisms at three levels of organisation, and watching them live shows how a single cell, a colony of like cells and a body of specialised cells each move, feed and respond.
PracticalLow riskVisking tubing as a model of a partially permeable membrane and a gut wall
Small molecules such as glucose diffuse through a partially permeable membrane while large molecules such as starch do not, which is why digestion must break food down before absorption.
PracticalMedium riskWater balance in plants: water loss from cuttings with leaf surfaces sealed
Most water leaves a plant through stomata, so sealing the leaf surface that carries most stomata cuts water loss sharply, showing how stomata and cuticle together let a plant balance water uptake and loss.
PracticalLow riskWater uptake by a shoot in a bubble potometer under changing conditions
Water lost from leaves by transpiration is replaced through the xylem, so the rate at which a bubble travels along a capillary measures the pull generated by evaporation.
Practical, model not builtLow riskYeast fermentation of glucose: carbon dioxide production and budding cells
Yeast releases carbon dioxide as it respires glucose without oxygen, and the same culture shows cells reproducing by budding.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA lens-and-screen model eye: myopia, hyperopia and how each is corrected
A sharp image needs the eye's focusing power to match its length, so an eye that is too long or too powerful (myopia) needs a diverging lens and one that is too short (hyperopia) needs a converging lens, while laser surgery changes the cornea's power instead.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAir and bone conduction: Rinne and Weber tests with a simulated conductive loss
Sound reaches the inner ear through the air of the ear canal and middle ear or directly through the skull, and closing off the air route shows why a bone conduction implant helps conductive hearing loss while a cochlear implant is needed when the inner ear itself fails.
PracticalLow riskAntimicrobial action of antibiotics, antiseptics and tea tree oil by disc diffusion
A substance that stops bacterial growth leaves a clear zone around the disc it soaks, and the zone's width compares treatments, including a plant extract used in Aboriginal medicine.
Teacher-led practicalPracticalMedium riskAsexual reproduction and whole-plant cloning from stem cuttings
A stem cutting regrows roots and becomes a genetically identical plant, which is asexual reproduction put to use as cloning.
PracticalLow riskCloning cauliflower by tissue culture on sterile medium
A few plant cells on a sterile nutrient medium can regrow a whole plant because plant cells keep the capacity to form any tissue, which is the basis of micropropagation.
PracticalMedium riskCoin-toss crosses: predicted ratios, sampling scatter and the chi-squared test
A Punnett square predicts a ratio, but real offspring counts scatter around it, and a chi-squared test decides whether the scatter is more than chance.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCow's eye dissection: the structures that focus light and the site of visual disorders
The cornea and lens together bend light onto the retina, so their shape and clarity decide whether an image is sharp, which is why spectacles, contact lenses and laser surgery act on the path of light through the front of the eye.
PracticalMedium 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.