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
22 practicals
Biology · Body systems
Sheep heart dissection: chambers, valves and the thickness of the walls
The structure of each part of the heart matches its job: the left ventricle wall is thickest because it pumps blood to the whole body, and one-way valves keep the flow in one direction.
PracticalMedium riskInvoluntary responses: the knee-jerk reflex and the pupil reflex
Some responses bypass conscious control: the knee-jerk kick follows the tap too fast to feel as a delay because the pathway runs through the spinal cord, and the iris adjusts the pupil to light without any decision being made.
PracticalLow riskPulse and breathing rate before and after exercise: body systems responding together
When muscles work harder, the nervous system raises heart rate and breathing rate together, so the circulatory and respiratory systems deliver more oxygen and carry away the extra carbon dioxide the muscles produce; when exercise stops, both rates fall back toward resting over several minutes.
PracticalLow riskReaction 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 riskEvaporative cooling and the limit of sweating: wet-bulb and dry-bulb temperatures
Sweat cools the body only by evaporating, and a wet thermometer bulb shows the lowest temperature evaporation can reach, which rises toward air temperature as humidity rises and so sets a limit to thermoregulation.
Practical, model not builtLow riskHeart rate, breathing rate and oxygen saturation before, during and after exercise
Exercise disturbs the body's internal environment and heart and breathing rates rise to correct it, then fall back toward resting values, while blood oxygen saturation stays nearly constant: a negative feedback response the learner can measure on themselves.
PracticalLow riskLamb kidney dissection: cortex, medulla, pelvis and ureter
The kidney's outer cortex, inner medulla and central pelvis are the visible regions of the kidney's filtering units (nephrons), and seeing them explains what dialysis must replace when kidney function is lost.
PracticalMedium riskModelling haemodialysis with Visking tubing and why fresh fluid is needed
In dialysis, small solutes diffuse from blood across a partially permeable membrane into dialysis fluid until concentrations equalise, large molecules stay behind, and only fresh fluid keeps removing waste.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskNear point, amplitude of accommodation and why reading glasses become necessary
The lens changes shape to focus near objects, and the closest point a person can focus (the near point) measures how much it can change, an amount that falls with age until reading needs added lens power.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTesting simulated urine for glucose and protein: evidence of diabetes and kidney damage
When blood glucose rises above what the kidney tubules can reabsorb, glucose appears in urine, and protein in urine signals damaged filters, so simple tests on urine reveal failures of homeostasis.
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.