Science practicals
Experiments and investigations you can do at home
One practical for every stage of Year 8 science, a geography investigation for every stage of Year 8 geography, and a history enquiry for every stage of Year 8 history. Everything uses kitchen equipment, and each guide ends with the topic quiz so the writing-up counts.
How fast does exercise change your breathing?
Does harder exercise make you take more breaths per minute?
Breathing and digestion
Does chewing start digestion before you swallow?
Does bread taste sweeter the longer you chew it?
Breathing and digestion
What happens to a leaf kept in the dark?
Does a plant leaf need light to keep making food?
Photosynthesis and respiration
Warming up anaerobic respiration in yeast
Does temperature change how fast yeast releases carbon dioxide?
Photosynthesis and respiration
Who lives in one square of ground?
Do more small animals live in damp shade than in dry sun?
Ecosystems and variation
Separating the colours in a felt-tip pen
Is a black felt-tip ink a pure substance or a mixture?
Atoms, elements and mixtures
Making your own pH indicator
Where do kitchen liquids sit on the pH scale?
Chemical reactions, acids and alkalis
Which material keeps a drink warm longest?
Does the insulating material change how fast energy is transferred away?
Energy transfers and resources
What actually changes a pendulum's swing?
Does mass or length change the time for ten swings?
Gravity and light
Bending light and splitting white light
What does water do to a beam of light, and what is white light made of?
Gravity and light
The paper helicopter fair test
Does wing length change how long a paper spinner takes to fall?
Working scientifically
Repeat readings and the anomaly hunt
How much do repeats change the answer you report?
Working scientifically
The hot-and-cold diffusion race
Do particles spread out faster in warm water or cold water?
Reproduction, plant gas exchange and particles on the move
How much feed is too much feed?
Does doubling the plant food double the growth, or harm it?
Living things and a changing environment
The diver you control with a squeeze
How does squeezing a sealed bottle make an object inside sink and rise?
Energy sums, pressure, waves and circuits
How reliable is the ruler-drop test?
Can you trust reaction-time measurements made with a dropped ruler?
Measuring well and showing your results
Which building shape survives the shaking?
Does a wider base make a tower more likely to survive an earthquake?
The restless Earth
Runny lava or sticky lava?
Does a thicker liquid flow further, or build a steeper cone?
The restless Earth
Run your own weather station for a week
How much does the weather change in one place across seven days?
Weather, climate and living things
Hunting microclimates around your home
Is one side of a building really warmer than the other?
Weather, climate and living things
Where does the rain actually go?
Does water soak into grass faster than into bare soil or paving?
Rivers and coasts
Rounding pebbles: attrition in a jar
Does shaking wear rock fragments rounder and smaller?
Rivers and coasts
A land-use survey of your own street
How is land used where you live, and who is it used by?
Population, cities and movement
Where does your dinner come from?
Which regions of the world feed your kitchen?
Population, cities and movement
Draw a relief transect from a map
What does the land actually look like between two grid references?
Reading the map like a geographer
Ask a question with GIS layers
Does your area have enough green space within a ten-minute walk?
Reading the map like a geographer
Which drink is hardest on your teeth?
Does a fizzy drink stain and soften an eggshell more than water does?
Teeth, digestion and food chains
Build a real food chain from your garden or park
Can you find every link of a food chain in one small patch outside?
Teeth, digestion and food chains
Make your own minibeast key
Can you write yes-or-no questions that identify five minibeasts?
Living things and habitats
What happens under a paving slab?
Does covering a patch of grass change what lives there?
Living things and habitats
The ice cube melting race
Where does an ice cube melt fastest, and why?
States of matter
Make a water cycle in a bag
Can you make rain happen on a window?
States of matter
Bottles and bands: changing pitch and volume
What changes the pitch of a note, and what changes how loud it is?
Sound and electricity
Conductor or insulator? Test ten things
Which materials in your house let electricity through?
Sound and electricity
Model the journey of your food
What happens to a cracker on its way through the digestive system?
Teeth, digestion and food chains
See a sound being made
Can you prove that every sound comes from something vibrating?
Sound and electricity
How big is a thousand really?
Can you build 1,000 without counting all the way to 1,000?
Numbers to 10,000
Guess the jar, then round it
Does a bigger sample make your estimate closer to the real number?
Numbers to 10,000
Which times table is your fastest?
Do you answer some tables faster than others, and does practice change it?
Column methods and times tables
Fair shares with water
Are two halves and four quarters really the same amount?
Fractions and decimals
Same perimeter, different area
If the fence stays the same length, can the field get bigger?
Measures, time and graphs
Grams, millilitres and a fair biscuit test
Does changing one measurement change how far the mixture goes?
Measures, time and graphs
Angle and shape hunt around the house
Which angles and shapes are most common in the rooms you live in?
Angles, shapes and position
Track a shadow to find north
Can a shadow tell you which way is north and how the Earth is turning?
Maps and our place in the world
Build a rain gauge and measure a week of weather
How much rain really falls where you live in one week?
Rivers, weather and the water cycle
Make a river in a tray
Does a steeper slope make a river cut a deeper channel?
Rivers, weather and the water cycle
Land use survey of your street
What is the land in your area actually used for?
People, settlements and resources
Traffic and footfall count
Is your road busier at one time of day than another?
Fieldwork in our local area
What did the Reformation do to your nearest old church?
Can you find evidence of the break with Rome in a building near you?
Crown, Church and country, 1509–1745
Who held power in 1625, 1650 and 1700?
Can you show the shift from crown to Parliament as a measurable line?
Crown against Parliament
Who lived on one street in 1851?
What does a single census page tell you about industrial Britain?
Industrial Britain, 1745–1901
What does your town choose to remember?
Whose story gets a statue, a street name or a plaque - and whose does not?
Empire, enslavement and abolition
Two accounts, one event: where do they disagree?
Why do two reliable accounts of the same event say different things?
Thinking like a historian
Where these fit
Each practical belongs to a stage of the Year 8 science pathway, so the theory is taught before the experiment is done.