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
189 practicals
Physics · page 3 of 4
Average speed of a battery toy car over measured distances
Speed is the distance travelled divided by the time taken, and a car moving at constant speed covers equal distances in equal times.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDistance-time graphs: walking in front of a motion sensor (or along floor marks)
The gradient of a distance-time graph is speed, so walking steadily gives a straight line, standing still gives a flat line and walking back gives a falling line.
Practical, model not builtLow riskGravity acts on every mass alike: dropping a heavy and a light ball together
Objects of different mass fall with the same acceleration when air resistance is negligible, because the gravitational force on each is proportional to its mass, so by a = F / m every mass gains speed at the same rate.
Practical, model not builtLow 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 riskNewton's first law: coin and card, glass on paper, and a passenger on a stopping trolley
An object keeps its state of rest or steady motion unless a net force acts on it, so removing the surface beneath an object quickly lets it stay in place and stopping a trolley suddenly lets its passenger keep moving.
PracticalLow riskNewton's second law: accelerating a trolley with hanging masses
The acceleration of an object is proportional to the net force on it and inversely proportional to its mass, so F = m a can be tested by changing one and measuring the other.
Practical, model not builtLow riskNewton's third law: balloon rocket, paired newton meters and trolleys pushing apart
Forces come in pairs: when one object pushes or pulls on another, the second pushes or pulls back on the first with an equal force in the opposite direction.
PracticalMedium riskTicker-tape analysis: velocity-time graph of a trolley rolling down a ramp
A trolley rolling down a ramp gains speed at a steady rate, which appears as ticker-tape dots spreading out evenly and as a straight rising line on a velocity-time graph whose gradient is the acceleration.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAverage and instantaneous velocity from a ticker-timer tape (syllabus practical)
A dot pattern made at a known rate turns a moving trolley into a position-time record from which average and instantaneous velocity are read as gradients.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAverage power in mechanical processes: stair climb and pulley lift (syllabus practical)
Power is the rate of doing work, so raising a known weight through a measured height in a measured time gives the average power directly.
PracticalLow riskBeats from two tuning forks or two close tones
Two waves of slightly different frequency drift in and out of step, so their sum swells and fades at the difference frequency.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCharging by friction and induction: sticky tape, electroscope and the bending water stream (syllabus practical)
Rubbing transfers electrons between surfaces, like charges repel, unlike charges attract, and a charged object attracts a neutral one by polarising it.
Teacher-led practicalPractical, model not builtMedium riskCoefficient of kinetic friction with a spring balance
The kinetic friction force between two surfaces grows in proportion to the normal force, and the constant of proportionality is a property of the pair of surfaces.
PracticalLow riskCreating mechanical waves on a slinky: transverse, longitudinal and the role of the medium (syllabus practical)
A mechanical wave transfers energy through a medium whose particles oscillate about fixed positions, either across or along the direction of travel.
Practical, model not builtLow riskCurrent-voltage characteristics of a resistor, a filament lamp and a diode
A metallic resistor at constant temperature obeys Ohm's law, while a heating filament and a diode do not, which shows the law's usefulness and its limits.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDispersion of white light with a prism, and Herschel's infrared thermometer (syllabus practical)
The refractive index of glass depends on wavelength, so a prism deviates violet more than red and spreads white light into a spectrum.
PracticalLow riskDisplacement, distance and the sign of velocity: a tumbling toy car and a motion sensor (syllabus practical)
Velocity carries a direction, so a position-time graph slopes up while an object moves away from the origin and down while it returns, and a round trip has zero displacement but a non-zero distance.
PracticalLow riskElectromagnet strength against current and turns: magnetising an iron core
A current in a coil aligns the domains of an iron core so the core becomes a magnet whose strength grows with current and turns until the domains are all aligned.
PracticalLow riskEnergy transfer by conduction, convection and radiation, and a thermal conductivity measurement
A hot object loses energy by particle collisions through a solid, by bulk flow of a fluid, and by electromagnetic radiation, at rates set by the material and the temperature difference.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskHow hot is a Bunsen flame? Specific heat applied to a heated metal cylinder
A hot metal dropped into water reaches thermal equilibrium, and energy conservation lets the metal's starting temperature be found from the water's rise.
PracticalMedium riskImage formation with converging lenses and curved mirrors on an optical bench (syllabus practical)
Rays from each point of an object are redirected by a lens or mirror to meet at an image point whose position and size follow from the focal length.
Practical, model not builtLow riskImpulse from a force-time graph: cart into a spring bumper and bouncing ball
The area under a force-time graph equals the change in momentum, so a longer collision time means a smaller peak force for the same impulse.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLatent heat of fusion: ice in water calorimetry and a stearic acid cooling curve (syllabus practical)
During a change of state energy is transferred without a change of temperature, and that hidden energy per kilogram is the latent heat.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskMagnetic field lines of bar magnets with iron filings, compasses and a phone magnetometer
A magnet's field can be mapped by the direction a compass points, and the field is strongest where the lines are closest, at the poles.
PracticalLow riskMagnetic field of a straight wire and a solenoid against current, measured with a phone magnetometer (syllabus practical)
A current produces a magnetic field whose strength grows in proportion to the current and, for a solenoid, to the turns per metre.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMapping electric fields and equipotentials on conductive paper
Field lines run from positive to negative electrodes, cross equipotential lines at right angles, and are closest where the potential changes fastest.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeasuring the acceleration due to gravity in free fall (syllabus practical)
An object released from rest falls with a constant acceleration that a timed drop over a measured height reveals as g.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMomentum in one- and two-dimensional collisions (syllabus practical)
In a closed system the total momentum before a collision equals the total after, whether or not kinetic energy is conserved.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMotion 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 practicalPracticalMedium 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 practicalPracticalHigh 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 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.