Environmental Management

This exam is offered by CAIE (Cambridge exam board) and is available to external candidates. It is very popular with home educating families in the UK, often as an early subject.

CAIE say "Cambridge IGCSE Environmental Management is concerned with education for sustainable development in a world where the security of resources and life-sustaining systems is endangered by human impact. The syllabus draws upon disciplines such as biology, earth science, geography, economics and anthropology.

It starts with the interdependence of the Earth's natural systems and how people use natural resources, and moves on to examine the impact of development on the environment. Issues such as environmental pollution and resource depletion are examined, but the view of them is forward looking, to see how we may change the nature of development towards future sustainability."

CAIE IGCSE Environmental Management

CAIE International GCSE Environmental Management page and specification

• Exams from: 2019
• Available in Autumn and Summer series
• Specification code: 0680 (graded A*-G)

Subject Content

The syllabus covers nine topics which have been designed to develop an understanding of both the natural and the human environment:

1. Rocks and minerals and their exploitation
2. Energy and the environment
3. Agriculture and the environment
4. Water and its management
5. Oceans and fisheries
6. Managing natural hazards
7. The atmosphere and human activities
8. Human population
9. Natural ecosystems and human activities.

Assessment

100% exam based.

• Paper 1 - Theory - 1hr 45 minutes - 80 marks - 50%
  • Section A: short and structured questions – 20 marks
  • Section B: short-answer and extended response questions based on source material – 60 marks

• Paper 2 - Management in Context - 1hr 45 minutes - 80 marks - 50%
  • Short, and extended response questions based on source material

Resources and Support

Textbooks

This textbook is endorsed by the exam board. Cambridge IGCSE® and O Level Environmental Management Coursebook (Cambridge International IGCSE) by Gary Skinner

There is an accompanying workbook.

Collins also publish a textbook

This textbook is also available, but is not endorsed by the exam board. Environmental Management for Cambridge O Level & IGCSE Student Book by John Pallister

Revision Guides

OUP publishes a revision guide. Environmental Management for Cambridge IGCSE® & O Level Revision Guide

Past papers

Past papers can be found on the specification page or sites such as Papacambridge. Each series (besides the March series - which is only sat in India) has 3 sets of papers available. These are because they were sat in different time zones. Although there were changes to the specification for exams from 2019, which reduced the number of exam papers from 3 to 2, the content remained similar so papers from 2018 and earlier are still useful for practice. Details of the changes are in the files of the Facebook group below.

Other Support

Environmental Management for Home Ed - Facebook group for sharing resources. This group has been running since 2013 and has a wealth of experience among its members and many resources in the group's files.

Many home-educated students study this subject successfully using just the textbook and free online resources, but some find a distance learning course suits their family better, or want to use a tutor occasionally for marking essays or past papers. Course providers can be found on the Distance Learning Providers page.

Comments from parents

A home educator comments: 'The ideal candidate for this course is someone with a good general knowledge and a keen interest in current affairs, especially environmental news. They need good reading and research skills and the ability to draw graphs/interpret tables etc, as this is a small part of the exam. They don’t need to be able to write in perfect grammatical English and the longest answers are just 6 marks each, the majority being 2 marks, so lots of short answers.

There is some overlap with Geography, Biology and even Economics, so if a student is also studying those subjects, they will find this very straightforward. There are two new textbooks to choose from which prepare students for the latest specification.

The subtitle for this exam is Sustainable Development and I think that’s actually a more fitting title. Great for anyone who cares about the world and those who inhabit it, especially its poorest people.' Dorothy Murphy

Another parent writes, "I would recommend the Cambridge University Press Coursebook by Gary Skinner et al. for this subject. It's very well written. There's an accompanying Workbook you can buy separately. We are using the workbook alongside the coursebook. It was a surprise to find that the answers are not in the back of the workbook, though! They're on the Teacher's CDROM, but, unwilling to pay £70 for that, I emailed the publisher, who sent them out by email. I've put them the Files section on the Facebook group (link below) so that others won't suffer the same dilemma."