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
56 practicals
Physics · Waves, sound and light · page 1 of 2
High or low: the length of a vibrating string changes its pitch
Shortening the part of a string that vibrates makes it vibrate faster and sound higher; halving the length raises the note by an octave.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLoud and soft: more energy, bigger vibration
Putting more energy into an object makes a bigger vibration and a louder sound, and a sound-level meter turns that into a number the class can compare with its own other readings.
PracticalLow riskMuffling sound: which material blocks it best
Sound passes through some materials more easily than others, and a fair test with a meter ranks them.
PracticalLow riskSee-through or not: sorting materials by how light passes
Materials let most, some or none of the light through, and that property decides where they are used.
PracticalLow riskSeeing sound: vibrations you can watch
Every sound comes from something vibrating, and the vibration can be made visible.
PracticalLow riskShadows with a torch: size changes with distance
A shadow forms where an object stops light; moving the object closer to the light makes the shadow bigger.
Practical, model not builtLow riskString telephone: sound travelling along a string
Sound travels through solids as well as air, and a tight string carries a voice further than the air around it.
PracticalLow riskTuned water bottles: how the amount of water changes the pitch
Blowing across a bottle sets the air above the water vibrating, so more water shortens that air and raises the note, while tapping the same bottle sets the vessel and the water vibrating together, so more water lowers the note.
Practical, model not builtLow riskAngle in equals angle out: the law of reflection on paper
Light bounces off a flat mirror so that the angle it bounces off at equals the angle it arrived at, measured from a line at right angles to the mirror, which a torch beam and a protractor show directly.
Practical, model not builtLow riskLight travels in straight lines: the three-card test
Light travels in straight lines, so a torch is seen through three holes only when the holes line up, and a shadow has the shape of the object that stops the light.
PracticalLow riskPinhole camera: an upside-down image proves light goes straight
Light from each point of a scene passes straight through a tiny hole and lands on the opposite side of the screen, so the image is inverted, and a ray diagram drawn to scale shows its size: halve the distance to the object and the image doubles.
Practical, model not builtLow riskShadow size: moving the object toward the torch
A shadow grows when the object moves closer to a small light source and shrinks when it moves toward the screen, because the light travels in straight lines that spread out from the source.
Practical, model not builtLow riskThe bending pencil and the reappearing coin: refraction
Light changes direction when it passes from air into water, so a straight pencil looks bent at the surface and a coin hidden by a cup's rim comes into view when water is poured in.
Practical, model not builtLow riskBell in a vacuum jar: sound needs a medium (teacher demonstration)
A ringing bell becomes almost inaudible as the air is pumped out of the jar around it, because sound needs particles to pass the vibration along.
Teacher-led practicalPracticalHigh riskBeyond the visible: Herschel's infrared experiment and a remote seen on a phone camera
Sunlight carries energy in radiation beyond the red end of the visible spectrum, so a blackened thermometer just past the red edge still warms, and a phone camera shows the invisible infrared flash of a remote control.
Practical, model not builtLow riskConverging lens: forming a real image on a screen and finding the focal length
A converging lens brings light to a focus, and a more strongly curved lens focuses closer to the lens. An object beyond the focal point forms a real, inverted image on a screen, and as the object is brought closer to the focal point the image moves further from the lens and grows larger.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDoppler effect: a buzzer swung on a cord, recorded on a phone
A sound source moving toward a listener is heard at a higher frequency and one moving away at a lower frequency, because the waves are bunched up ahead of the source and stretched behind it.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskLaw of reflection: ray box and plane mirror
Light reflects from a flat mirror so that the angle of reflection equals the angle of incidence, both measured from the normal.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeasuring the speed of sound: echoes from a wall and two phones with acoustic stopwatches
Sound travels at a finite, measurable speed in air, about a third of a kilometre each second, which can be found from the time a clap takes to cover a known distance.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPinhole camera: a model of how the eye forms an inverted image
Rays from each point of an object travel in straight lines through a small opening and cross there, so the image on the screen is inverted and its size depends on the distances. The eye forms its image on the retina in the same way, with the pupil as the opening and the lens gathering enough light to keep the image bright and sharp.
Practical, model not builtLow riskPitch and loudness: measuring frequency and amplitude with a phone spectrum app
The pitch of a sound is set by its frequency and the loudness by its amplitude, and both can be read from a microphone trace.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRefraction: tracing a ray through a rectangular glass slab
Light bends toward the normal when it slows on entering glass and away from the normal when it leaves, so a ray that passes through a parallel-sided slab comes out parallel to the ray that went in but shifted sideways.
Practical, model not builtLow riskRipple tank: reflection at a barrier and refraction into shallow water
Water waves reflect from a barrier at the same angle they arrive and change speed and direction when they cross into shallower water, the same behaviours that light shows at mirrors and glass.
Practical, model not builtLow riskSlinky waves: transverse and longitudinal pulses, wavelength, frequency and speed
A wave carries energy along a medium while the medium's parts only move about their rest positions, either across the direction of travel (transverse) or along it (longitudinal).
Practical, model not builtLow riskSound is a vibration: tuning fork in water and dancing sprinkles
Every sound comes from a vibrating source, and the vibration passes through the air to make other objects vibrate.
PracticalLow riskSound through solids, liquids and gases: string telephones, a bench and an underwater tap
Sound travels through any material whose particles can pass on a vibration, and it travels faster and further through solids than through air.
PracticalLow riskTotal internal reflection: finding the critical angle with a semicircular slab
Light leaving glass for air bends away from the normal, and beyond a certain angle, the critical angle, it cannot leave at all and is entirely reflected inside, which is how optical fibres keep light inside them.
Practical, model not builtLow riskWhite light: dispersion by a prism and absorption by colour filters
White light is a mix of colours that a prism spreads out by refracting each wavelength a different amount, and a colour filter transmits its own colour while absorbing the rest.
PracticalLow 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 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 riskBlack body radiation and Wien's law: a dimmed filament and the solar spectrum peak
A hot body radiates a continuous spectrum whose peak wavelength shifts to shorter values as temperature rises, in inverse proportion to the temperature.
Practical, model not builtLow riskDe Broglie matter waves: electron diffraction rings and the wavelength of an accelerated electron
Electrons passed through a crystal form diffraction rings whose size shrinks as the accelerating voltage rises, exactly as a wave of wavelength h over m v would.
Teacher-led practicalPractical, model not builtHigh riskDiffraction of laser light through slits, a thin wire and a grating (qualitative) (syllabus practical)
Light passing an edge or a narrow opening spreads and forms a pattern of bright and dark bands, which only a wave model explains.
Practical, model not builtMedium riskMalus's law with two polarising filters and a phone light meter (syllabus practical)
Light is a transverse wave whose electric field can be filtered to one direction, and the transmitted intensity through a second filter falls with the square of the cosine of the angle between them.
Practical, model not builtLow riskMeasuring a laser's wavelength with a double slit and a diffraction grating (quantitative) (syllabus practical)
Bright fringes appear where the path difference from two sources is a whole number of wavelengths, so the fringe geometry gives the wavelength.
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.