There has been a considerable growth of interest in many aspects of plasma physics during recent years. This has been reflected in the introduction of new courses, or the expansion of old ones, in many colleges and universities to cater to the needs of students interested in this field. Laboratory experience constitutes an extremely valuable adjunct to teaching courses. There is, consequently, a considerable value in introducing experimental work wherever possible. This paper describes some laboratory experiments, requiring a minimum of expensive equipment, and which serve to introduce the student to useful diagnostic techniques which are founded on very basic models of plasma behavior. They have been tested in the laboratory and adopted for a laboratory instruction course given to graduate electrical engineers and physicists at Stanford University.