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
68 practicals
Environment and sustainability · page 2 of 2
Composition of household or school waste: a sorted and weighed audit (syllabus practical)
What goes in the bin is measurable, and the mass fractions of food, paper, plastic, glass and metal decide which management options save the most resources.
PracticalMedium riskFinding microplastics in soil or sediment by density separation
Plastic fragments less dense than saturated salt water float free of sand and mud, so a density separation reveals pollution the eye cannot see and a blank shows how much contamination the method itself adds.
PracticalLow riskFloating ice against land ice: which raises sea level when it melts
Floating ice already displaces its own mass of water, so in fresh water its melting does not change the level, whereas ice resting on land adds new water to the ocean.
PracticalLow riskLiquefaction: saturated sand losing strength when shaken
Shaking raises the water pressure between sand grains until they no longer touch, so saturated ground behaves as a liquid and buildings sink or tilt.
PracticalLow riskLocating an earthquake from S minus P times at three stations
P waves outrun S waves, so the gap between their arrivals at a station gives its distance to the earthquake, and three distances fix the epicentre.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMagma viscosity: flow rate of model lavas and what it means for eruption style
Silica-rich magma is far more viscous than basaltic magma, traps gas and erupts explosively, while runny basalt degasses and flows.
PracticalLow riskMapping a sinking plate: earthquake focus depths across the Java Trench and a mid-ocean ridge
At a convergent boundary earthquake foci deepen with distance from the trench along the sinking slab, while at a divergent boundary they stay shallow, so a depth cross-section maps the boundary’s shape and the depth of its hazard.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMilankovitch cycles by hand: modelling eccentricity, tilt and precession
Slow changes in the Earth’s orbit and axis redistribute sunlight between seasons and hemispheres over tens of thousands of years, pacing the ice ages.
PracticalLow riskOcean acidification: carbon dioxide lowering the pH of water and attacking carbonate shells
Carbon dioxide dissolving in water forms carbonic acid, which lowers pH and dissolves calcium carbonate, the chemistry that threatens shell-building marine life.
Practical, model not builtLow riskOutput of a solar cell against light intensity and angle
A photovoltaic cell’s short-circuit current follows the light it intercepts, so tilt, shading and time of day set the yield of a renewable energy resource.
PracticalLow riskOverharvesting a renewable resource: a fishing model and maximum sustainable yield
A renewable population replaces itself fastest at half its carrying capacity, so a harvest above that maximum sustainable yield drives it to collapse, however large the stock looks at the start.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRunoff from a model catchment: how land cover changes the flood peak
Paving and clearing raise the fraction of rain that runs off at once, so the same storm produces a higher, earlier flood peak from a built-up catchment.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSlope stability: angle of repose of dry, damp and saturated sediment
Loose material stands only up to its angle of repose, and a little water raises that angle while more water can lower it again, which is part of why heavy rain triggers landslides.
PracticalLow riskThe greenhouse effect in a bottle, and why the bottle model needs care
Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation and warms the air, but a bottle mostly measures trapped convection, so the practical teaches both the effect and the limits of a physical model.
PracticalLow riskThermal expansion of water: measuring the rise in a flask and scaling to sea level
Warmer water occupies more volume, so a warming ocean rises even before any ice melts, and the effect is measurable in a flask with a narrow tube.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTree rings as climate records: counting, measuring and cross-dating
A tree adds one ring a year whose width follows the growing conditions, so ring sequences from overlapping trees give a dated record of past climate.
PracticalLow riskTsunami speed and water depth in a tray, and the shallow-water wave law
A tsunami is a shallow-water wave whose speed depends on depth alone, so it crosses the deep ocean at aircraft speed and slows, steepens and grows as it reaches the coast.
Practical, model not builtLow riskWind turbine output and wind speed: the cube law and the Betz limit
The power carried by wind rises with the cube of its speed and with the area the blades sweep, and no turbine can capture more than 16/27 of it, which sets where wind farms are worth building.
Practical, model not builtLow riskGrowth of radish seedlings watered with saline water
Plant growth falls once the salinity of the water a crop receives passes a threshold, and a class trial infers that threshold from its own data before checking it against published secondary data.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTesting trend models for carbon dioxide on Cape Grim data
Different mathematical models can fit the same past data almost equally well yet predict differently, so a model is judged by how well it predicts data it was not fitted to.
Calculation and dataLow 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.