Why it matters
The investigation is where science teachers carry the most risk.
The IB rebuilt its science courses for first exams in May 2025. Biology, Chemistry and Physics now share one investigation model and one set of criteria, and most of the work lands in a single busy term.
Copycat projects
Examiners report students defaulting to the same standard experiments, with weak research design and evaluation.
Moderation risk
Teachers mark the work, then the IB moderates a sample and moves marks it judges too harsh or too lenient for the whole class.
AI authorship
AI isn't banned, but undeclared AI writing is misconduct, and teachers must vouch for the work. Detectors only guess.
Workload
In a 2025 survey of over 1,000 teachers in Ireland, 85% named workload as a cause of burnout.
How it works
One path from first idea to final mark.
Students join with a class code, a first name and a 4-digit PIN. No email, no app to install.
Choose a question
Ideas that fit the school's own lab kit and syllabus topics. The teacher approves each research question.
Log the work
Notes, raw data, photos and AI-use declarations, each stamped with the time it was saved and impossible to edit later.
Submit the report
The student uploads a PDF. A copy of their notebook trail is attached at that moment.
Mark it blind
Two teachers and an AI examiner mark against the official IB criteria without seeing each other's marks.
Agree and release
The teachers agree one set of marks, release feedback to the student and download the filled-in IB scoring sheet.
What's inside
Everything the investigation needs, in one place.
All of this is working now in the beta.
Idea Engine
Research ideas for Biology, Chemistry and Physics, for internal assessments and extended essays, matched to your equipment and syllabus topics. Overused experiments are flagged. Teachers can build a class idea bank.
Timestamped notebook
The student's process, recorded as it happens. One tap builds an authorship record for a coordinator or a moderation query.
IA moderation
Blind marking by two teachers and an AI examiner, part by part against the official criteria, with quotes as evidence. Disagreements are flagged before anyone agrees a mark. The same tab runs IA moderation cases: one sample IA graded by two teachers, or one teacher plus AI, against the DP Biology IA rubric.
IB scoring sheet
After release, download the official marking form as a Word file, filled in with the agreed marks and comments for each part, ready to check and sign.
Marker agreement
Practice reports and a department view of where teachers' marks differ most, beside a checklist from the school's own IB moderator feedback.
Discussion Forum
Teachers pose inquiry questions; students answer before seeing each other's answers, then reply and help each other. Feedback can be shared only after it's released.
Private notes
A dated thread between each student and their teacher that joins the authorship record, with the IB's one-round-of-draft-feedback rule built in.
Task builder
Turns a department's rubric and a topic into a task sheet and a task-specific rubric, keeping the official level wording word for word.
Class overview
Every student's stage, the deadlines, the newest discussion and exactly who needs a follow-up, on one screen.
Who it helps
Built for the whole science department.
Schools and coordinators
- Fairer, more consistent marks before the IB moderates the sample
- Evidence of authorship that doesn't depend on AI detectors
- One tool for Biology, Chemistry and Physics with the same criteria
- Student privacy by design first names and PINs only, no ads or tracking
Teachers
- A second opinion on every report from an AI examiner and a colleague
- Less paperwork the scoring sheet fills itself in from the agreed marks
- Know who needs you without chasing every student
- Better questions ideas that fit your lab, not the same five experiments
Students
- An original question that their own school can actually run
- Proof the work is theirs if anyone ever asks
- Fairer marks from more than one marker
- Clear feedback and a place to ask questions and learn from each other
How it uses AI
AI helps the teacher. It never writes for the student.
LabCauldron uses Claude, made by Anthropic. Under Anthropic's commercial terms, student work is never used to train its AI.
LabCauldron uses AI to
- Suggest marks against the official IB criteria, with quotes from the report, only when a teacher asks
- Suggest research ideas that fit your lab, as starting points students must make their own
- Help teachers draft tasks and task-specific rubrics
LabCauldron never uses AI to
- Write any part of a student's report
- Award marks: teachers decide every mark
- Read private notes or class discussion
- Accuse a student: a flag prompts a conversation, and the teacher decides
Students declare any AI use in their notebook, in line with the IB's rule that AI must be acknowledged.
Where it stands
In beta now, built to grow.
IB sciences betaNow
Live for Biology, Chemistry and Physics classes in an invite-only beta.
More IB schools
The same criteria apply in every IB school, so departments elsewhere can use it as it stands.
Beyond IB
Any course with student research or lab reports: AP science labs, science fairs and district programs.
National benefit
Better science, fairer grades, teachers who stay.
Stronger science skills
Students design real investigations and work with real data, the skills universities and STEM employers ask for.
Trust in grades in the AI era
A process record lets schools stand behind student work without relying on AI detectors.
Fairer marking
Blind second marking and calibration narrow the gap between strict and lenient teachers, so a grade depends less on which school a student attends.
Teacher retention
Less admin in the busiest term gives teachers time back for teaching.
Equity of access
Ideas fit the equipment a school actually owns, and free open databases give under-resourced schools serious projects too.
Teachers and students: sign in to the beta.
Sources
- IB Biology May 2025 subject report (available to IB teachers through the IB Programme Resource Centre)
- Biology for Life: internal assessment and moderation
- Tes: IA moderation and grading workbook
- MyRevisionAgent: IB rules on AI in the IA
- DCU: Teacher Occupational Wellbeing Research 2025
- Anthropic commercial terms