This booklet is part of the ‘Innovations in Practical Work’ series published by the Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme (SEP). Composites are made by physically combining two or more materials. Many composite materials are used to provide strength and rigidity while using thinner, lighter components. However, they...

The enzyme lactase is widely used in the dairy industry to convert the naturally occurring disaccharide sugar lactose into glucose and galactose. In this practical students investigate the treatment of milk with lactase. Following treatment they test the glucose content of the converted milk, and compare products...

This booklet in the Griffin Technical Studies series provides practical activities in which students investigate aspects of forensic science. The resource can be used as part of cross-curricular learning and case studies are provided to encourage logical thought, debate and discussion and decision making skills....

Six groups of practicals produced by the Institute of Physics (IOP) that help students to find out more about how science is applied to using and testing new materials.

In addition to the guidance included for specific activities, please refer to the generic health and safety information before commencing...

When your chocolate company's sales begin to melt away, science comes to the rescue with datalogging! This resource has been provided by the Association for Science Education (ASE).

Chocolate is a datalogging investigation activity. It is set in the context of helping the McChocs company to make better...

This Unilever Laboratory Experiment, published in 1973, describes two methods for determining the vitamin C in foods. The leaflet describes the estimation of vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid) in foodstuffs, after extraction with metaphosphoric acid, by titration with a standardized dye, 2,6 dichlorophenolindophenol,...

This Unilever Laboratory Experiment, published in 1970, describes the procedure for a titration with EDTA and Eriochrome Black T to determine the total hardness of water. The details cover the preparation of a standard solution of EDTA as well as the steps of the titration.

As the number of cells in a microbial culture increases, turbidity increases. In this experiment students calculate doubling time and growth rate constant using absorbance as the measure of growth. Turbidity is caused by suspended cells in the growth medium scattering light, and may be measured using a colorimeter...

This experiment is a continuation of Determining Doubling Time. Students create a standard curve of absorbance against yeast concentration, and use this to determine the concentration of yeast produced over time.

The standard curve (dry mass, grams per litre) is generated from known concentrations of dried...

This mystery deals with a laboratory report in which the written results suddenly vanished. The students need to find out how the writing vanished,  how to recover the vanished data, and what the secret of the pen is.

Curriculum links include ...

In this investigation, students extract iron from a breakfast cereal and consider how our bodies are able to digest iron by looking at its reactions with hydrochloric acid.

From Solar Spark, this practical activity explores the reactions at electrodes in an electrical circuit. A solar cell contains two electrodes. Different reactions happen at each electrode so that electrons can move around the circuit to give an electric current. In this experiment students use filter paper soaked...

This activity sheet is based on the Inventive Podcast.  It introduces a disaster risk engineer Josh Macabuag, and links his work to a physics topic. The activity sheet also supports Careers Benchmark 4: Careers in the curriculum by introducing a career and role model. There are also links to short audio clips of...

This booklet is part of the ‘Innovations in Practical Work’ series published by the Gatsby Science Enhancement Programme (SEP). An important part of understanding energy is getting to know the different ways it can be stored and transferred. Finding ways to do this with...