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
17 practicals
Mathematics · Statistics and data
Sorting our shoes: a graph made of real objects
When objects are sorted into rows that start on the same line and each object takes one equal space, the longest row shows the most common group without counting.
PracticalLow riskTally, table, picture graph: a class survey
Answers to a question can be collected with tally marks, organised in a table and shown in a picture graph where one picture stands for one answer.
PracticalLow riskFrom survey to column graph: a statistical investigation
A question is answered by collecting data with a method that everyone follows, recording it in a frequency table and drawing a graph whose scale suits the numbers.
PracticalLow riskHow many in the jar: estimating a collection by sampling
A large collection can be estimated by counting one scoop, counting how many scoops fill the container and multiplying, then checked against a full count.
PracticalLow riskOne data set, three displays: handfuls of cubes
The same data can be shown as a list, a dot plot or a column graph, and a display that keeps every value on a shared scale shows the shape and spread of the data and makes two groups easier to compare.
Practical, model not builtLow riskChange over time: a line graph of cooling water
A line graph shows how a quantity changes over time, and the slope of the line shows whether the change is fast or slow.
PracticalMedium riskHand spans: a dot plot, the mode and the range
Measurements collected from a group vary, and a dot plot shows the shape of that variation together with the most common value and the spread from smallest to largest.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRuler drop: measuring reaction time and comparing two hands
Reaction time can be measured by how far a falling ruler drops before it is caught, and a class investigation compares two groups of such measurements with displays on a shared scale.
Practical, model not builtLow riskTruncated axes: how a column graph can exaggerate a difference
When the vertical axis of a column graph starts above zero, the column heights no longer compare the values, so a small difference can look large, and redrawing from zero shows the true comparison.
Practical, model not builtLow riskHand span of the class: mean, median, mode, range and the effect of one outlier
A continuous measurement collected from everyone in the room gives a distribution whose centre and spread can be summarised, and one extreme value moves the mean and the range while moving the median by at most half the gap between the two middle values.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRandom samples from a known population: how sample size changes the spread of sample means
Samples drawn at random from the same population give different means, and the means of larger samples cluster more closely around the population mean, so the spread of the sample means shrinks as the sample size grows.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBox plots of reaction time: dominant against non-dominant hand
A five-number summary and a box plot let two sets of measurements be compared on centre, spread, shape and outliers in one display.
Practical, model not builtLow riskClimate Data Online: daily maximum temperatures for two months compared
A public data set of daily observations can be downloaded, summarised and displayed so that two distributions are compared on centre, spread, shape and outliers with the real numbers behind them.
PracticalLow riskHeight and arm span: a scatterplot and a line of best fit by eye
Two measurements taken from each person form points whose pattern shows the direction, strength and linearity of their association, and a line of best fit drawn by eye lets one be predicted from the other, with predictions outside the measured range treated as less reliable.
Practical, model not builtLow riskEstimating 30 seconds: z-scores and the empirical rule on a class dataset
A class of time estimates gives a real dataset whose mean, median and mode can be compared, whose values convert to z-scores, and whose spread can be tested against the 68-95-99.7 rule.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDrop height against bounce height: scatterplot, correlation and least-squares line
Two measured variables with a physical link give a scatterplot whose strength and direction a correlation coefficient measures and whose trend a least-squares line predicts, within the measured range only.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeans of dice: the sampling distribution of the mean and the central limit theorem
A single die is flat, but the mean of ten dice is bunched around 3.5 with a spread that shrinks with the square root of the sample size, and its distribution looks normal although the population does not.
Practical, model not builtLow 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.