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
65 practicals
Earth and space · page 2 of 2
Classifying rocks as igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic with a dichotomous key
Texture (crystal or grain size, layering, foliation) and mineral content record how a rock formed, which is what a rock classification key reads.
PracticalLow riskCrystal size and cooling rate with salol on warm and cold slides
Slow cooling grows large crystals and fast cooling grows small ones, which is why intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks of the same composition look different.
PracticalLow riskDensity of crust, mantle and core materials and what it tells us about the interior
Surface rocks are far less dense than the whole Earth, so the interior must hold much denser material, which the layered model reproduces.
Practical, model not builtLow riskIdentifying minerals by hardness, streak, lustre, cleavage, acid test and specific gravity
A mineral is identified from a fixed set of physical properties that follow from its composition and crystal structure, applied through a dichotomous key.
PracticalLow riskModelling divergent, convergent and transform boundaries and the features they build
Each boundary type produces a characteristic set of features, rift and ridge, trench and fold mountains, offset faults, which simple sand and card models reproduce under the same motions.
PracticalLow riskSea-floor spreading and magnetic stripes: a magnetised-pin model and the spreading-rate calculator
New crust forms at a ridge and records the magnetic field of its day, so on each side of the ridge a stripe’s width equals the half spreading rate multiplied by the length of that polarity interval.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe continental jigsaw: fitting the continents at the edge of the shelf
The continents fit at the continental shelf edge rather than the coastline, and matching rocks and fossils across the join are evidence that they were once one.
PracticalLow riskThe S-wave shadow zone: modelling why the outer core must be liquid
S waves cannot pass through liquid, so stations more than about 103 degrees from an earthquake record no direct S waves, which fixes the size and state of the outer core.
Practical, model not builtLow riskA scale model of geological time from the International Chronostratigraphic Chart
Almost all of Earth history passed before complex life; a scaled timeline built from the chart’s numerical ages makes the proportions of the eons and the brevity of human time visible.
PracticalLow riskMaking mould, cast and trace fossils in clay and plaster
A fossil is usually not the organism but the shape it left, a mould, the filling of that shape, a cast, or the mark of its activity, a trace.
PracticalLow riskSediment layers in a jar: superposition, grading and reading a sequence
Sediment settles with the oldest layer at the base, coarsest grains first in each pulse, which is the rule that lets a rock sequence be read in order.
PracticalLow riskStrike, dip and the order of events at an outcrop or road cutting (fieldwork)
Beds are laid down close to horizontal, so a steep measured dip records tilting or folding that came after deposition; with superposition, cross-cutting relationships and unconformities, strike and dip readings put the events at an outcrop in order.
PracticalMedium riskA scale model of the solar system on the school oval
Built to one scale for both sizes and distances, the solar system is specks separated by enormous gaps, something no page diagram can show.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLogging the strata in a rock cutting
A rock face gives qualitative observations (colour, structures) and quantitative ones (bed thickness, grain size, dip), and the principle of superposition turns the measured log into an inferred sequence of events.
PracticalMedium riskTesting the assumption that the Sun rises in the east
The Sun rises due east only at the equinoxes; on other dates the rising point swings north or south by an amount set by latitude and the Sun’s declination.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEarthquake-resistant design on a shake table: resonance, bracing and base isolation
A building sways most when the ground shakes near its natural frequency; bracing raises that frequency and base isolation lowers it, both moving the structure away from resonance as Newton’s second law predicts for a mass on a spring.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeasuring the Earth with two shadows, the Eratosthenes method
Two shadow angles measured at local noon at places a known north–south distance apart give the Earth’s circumference by geometry, the method Eratosthenes chose because the Earth could not be measured directly.
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.