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
14 practicals
Biology · Ecosystems
Schoolyard minibeast survey: where small animals live
Small animals live in places that give them what they need: damp, shade, food and cover.
PracticalMedium riskWhich side do snails choose: damp or dry
An animal moves to the conditions its body needs, and a choice chamber lets the animal show its need.
PracticalLow riskWho lives in leaf litter? A funnel survey and a food web
A handful of leaf litter holds consumers and decomposers that depend on the producers above it, the trees that dropped the leaves, and sorting what lives there by what it eats builds a real food web from the school grounds.
PracticalMedium riskDecomposers at work: what rots in a sealed bag?
Decomposers such as fungi and bacteria break down dead plant and animal material and return nutrients to the soil, while made materials such as plastic are not broken down.
PracticalMedium riskSchoolyard habitats: measuring physical conditions and counting who lives there
Places a few metres apart in one schoolyard have measurably different temperature, light and soil moisture, and the number and kinds of small animals living in each follow those physical conditions.
PracticalMedium riskDuckweed population growth: exponential start, limited finish
A population with plenty of resources grows by a constant proportion each day, and growth slows as space or nutrients run out.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEutrophication in a jar: fertiliser run-off and algal growth
Adding nutrients to still water increases producer growth, and the extra biomass changes the conditions for every other organism in the system.
PracticalLow riskLeaf litter invertebrates: Tullgren funnel extraction and a dichotomous key
Organisms are classified by shared structural features, and a dichotomous key turns those features into a repeatable series of either-or choices that ends in a named group.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRandom quadrat sampling: estimating how many plants are on the oval
A population too large to count is estimated from random samples, and the estimate tightens as the number of samples grows.
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 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 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 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 riskSlaters in a damp and dry choice chamber, with a chi-square test
Counting where animals settle turns a behaviour into quantitative data, and a statistical test shows whether a small sample is enough to support the pattern the eye sees.
PracticalLow 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.