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
30 practicals
Chemistry · Organic and quantitative chemistry
Magnesium in acid: predicting the volume of hydrogen before you collect it
A reaction between a metal and an acid makes a salt and hydrogen, and the mass of metal fixes the volume of gas, so a prediction can be tested.
PracticalMedium riskMaking a plastic from potato starch and changing it with glycerol
A polymer's properties depend on how its chains are held together, so adding a plasticiser such as glycerol turns a brittle starch film into a flexible one, and a starch plastic can be broken down by soil organisms that cannot digest polyethylene.
PracticalLow riskBoyle's law and Charles's law with a sealed syringe, pressure sensor and water bath
For a fixed amount of gas, pressure times volume is constant at fixed temperature, and volume is proportional to absolute temperature at fixed pressure; both are limits of PV = nRT.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBurning magnesium in a crucible: mass gain and the empirical formula of magnesium oxide
Elements combine in a fixed whole-number mole ratio; the mass of oxygen gained by a weighed strip of magnesium gives that ratio directly.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskConservation of mass: vinegar and sodium hydrogen carbonate in an open cup and a capped bottle, and a precipitation on the balance
Mass is conserved in every chemical reaction; an apparent loss in an open system is the mass of gas that left, which the balanced equation predicts.
Practical, model not builtLow riskHeating hydrated copper(II) sulfate: water of crystallisation and the molar mass of a compound
The mass lost on heating a hydrate is the water of crystallisation, and the mole ratio of water to anhydrous salt fixes the formula and the molar mass.
PracticalMedium riskMagnesium and hydrochloric acid in an inverted burette: whole-number mole ratio and the molar volume of a gas
One mole of magnesium releases one mole of hydrogen, and the volume of that gas at the room's temperature and pressure gives the molar volume.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskPreparing a 0.100 mol/L sodium carbonate standard solution and a tenfold dilution
A standard solution has a concentration known from a weighed primary standard made up to an exact volume, and dilution keeps the number of moles constant while the volume grows.
PracticalLow riskWeighing 50 mL of different gases: Avogadro's law and relative molecular mass from the ideal gas equation
Equal volumes of gases at the same temperature and pressure hold equal numbers of molecules, so the mass of a fixed volume is proportional to the molar mass.
Teacher-led practicalPractical, model not builtMedium riskWeighing out 0.100 mol of elements and compounds: a mole display
Equal amounts in moles contain equal numbers of particles but have different masses, because the mass of each particle differs; the molar mass converts one to the other.
PracticalLow riskA calibration line from published atomic absorption data for copper in water
Atomic absorption spectroscopy measures how much light free atoms of one metal remove from a beam at that metal's own wavelength, so a line fitted through standards of known concentration turns a sample's absorbance into a concentration. A school may have no atomic absorption spectrometer, as the NSW Department of Education Module 8 guide recognises, so the standards are prepared by hand and the absorbance readings are taken from published data, which the syllabus allows, since its Module 8 content accepts processing data as well as conducting an investigation.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskBuilding and naming structural isomers with model kits: alkanes, alkenes, alcohols, esters
The same molecular formula can be assembled into different carbon skeletons or functional groups, and each arrangement is a distinct compound with its own IUPAC name and properties.
Practical, model not builtLow riskColourimetry of copper(II) solutions: a calibration curve, the Beer-Lambert law and an unknown from a brass or ore digest
Absorbance is proportional to the concentration of a coloured species, so a calibration line from standards converts the absorbance of an unknown into its concentration; the same principle underlies UV-visible spectrophotometry and atomic absorption spectroscopy.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskComparing properties along the alcohol homologous series: boiling point, evaporative cooling, miscibility and flame
Members of a homologous series differ by one CH2 unit, so properties that depend on dispersion forces change steadily along the series while the functional group's chemistry stays the same.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskComparing the enthalpy of combustion of methanol, ethanol, propan-1-ol and butan-1-ol by calorimetry
Each CH2 unit added to an alcohol adds a nearly constant amount of combustion energy per mole, and the energy per gram rises along the series as the oxygen fraction falls.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskDehydration of ethanol to ethene over a hot catalyst, with the gas tested by bromine water (teacher demonstration)
Heating ethanol vapour over a solid catalyst removes water and forms an alkene, and the collected gas decolourises bromine water where ethanol vapour does not.
Teacher-led practicalPracticalHigh riskFermentation of glucose by yeast: tracking carbon dioxide loss on a balance and testing for ethanol
Yeast enzymes convert glucose to ethanol and carbon dioxide; the mass lost from an open flask over days is the carbon dioxide, and the stoichiometry sets the maximum yield.
Practical, model not builtLow riskGravimetric analysis of the sulfate content of a lawn fertiliser or water sample as barium sulfate
Precipitating an ion completely as an insoluble compound of known formula, then drying and weighing it, gives the ion's mass in the original sample.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskIdentifying anions in solution: the eight syllabus anions by acid, silver, barium and iron(III) tests
Anions are identified by which cation precipitates them, the colour of the precipitate and whether it dissolves in acid or ammonia, with gas tests for carbonate and hydroxide.
PracticalMedium riskIdentifying the eight cations of the 2017 syllabus by flame and precipitation tests
Each cation gives a fixed pattern of flame colour, precipitate colour and solubility in excess reagent, so a short sequence of tests identifies which of the eight is present.
PracticalMedium riskMaking esters from alcohols and carboxylic acids with a sulfuric acid catalyst and identifying them by smell
A carboxylic acid and an alcohol condense with loss of water to form an ester; the catalyst speeds the equilibrium and the product is recognised by its characteristic odour and insolubility.
PracticalMedium riskMaking soap from castor oil and sodium hydroxide, and comparing soap and a synthetic detergent in hard water
Alkaline hydrolysis of a triglyceride gives glycerol and the sodium salts of fatty acids, whose ionic head and hydrocarbon tail let them lift grease, while calcium ions in hard water precipitate soap but not detergent.
PracticalMedium riskMeasuring the equilibrium constant of the iron(III) thiocyanate reaction by colourimetry
The concentration of the coloured complex at equilibrium, read from a calibration curve, fixes the equilibrium constant for a set of mixtures whatever their starting ratio.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskOxidising primary, secondary and tertiary alcohols with an acidified oxidant and identifying the products
A primary alcohol oxidises to an aldehyde and then a carboxylic acid, a secondary alcohol to a ketone, and a tertiary alcohol not at all, so the oxidant's colour change and the product's tests sort the three classes.
Teacher-led practicalPracticalHigh riskPrecipitation titration of chloride in seawater with silver nitrate and a chromate indicator (Mohr method)
Silver ions precipitate chloride quantitatively, and the first excess of silver forms red-brown silver chromate, marking the end point so the chloride concentration can be found by titration.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskSubstitution against addition: bromine water with cyclohexane in sunlight and in the dark
An alkene takes up bromine at once and in the dark, because the double bond adds bromine directly, while an alkane takes up bromine only in light, because that reaction is a substitution which cannot begin until a photon splits a bromine molecule into two atoms. Light is therefore the variable that separates the two mechanisms.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskSynthesising aspirin: percentage yield and purity by melting point
An ester made in the school laboratory can be weighed against the mass its equation predicts, and its purity read from the temperature and the width of its melting range, so yield and purity become measured quantities with stated uncertainties rather than claims.
Teacher-led practicalPractical, model not builtHigh riskTesting for carbon-carbon double bonds with bromine water and acidified permanganate on a microscale
An alkene adds bromine across its double bond and decolourises bromine water at once, while an alkane needs light and time to substitute; the difference identifies unsaturation.
PracticalMedium riskTesting organic unknowns for carbon-carbon double bonds, hydroxyl groups and carboxylic acids
Three quick bench tests sort small organic molecules by functional group: bromine water for alkenes, an acidified oxidant for alcohols, and hydrogen carbonate for carboxylic acids.
PracticalMedium riskThe nylon rope trick (condensation polymerisation) with a model of addition and condensation polymer chains
Monomers join into long chains either by adding across double bonds or by condensing with loss of a small molecule; the repeat unit fixes the chain's composition and the properties follow from the chain's structure.
Teacher-led practicalPractical, model not builtHigh risk
For tutors and administrators
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