ICSE Class 9 Syllabus 2027 Environmental Science

ICSE YEAR 2027

INDIAN CERTIFICATE OF
SECONDARY EDUCATION
EXAMINATION

ENVIRONMENTAL
SCIENCE
(82)

February 2025
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Minimum monitoring.
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Catering to the needs of the children.
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and practices.
Diversity and plurality - the basic strength for
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Schools to motivate pupils towards the
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Excellence - The Indian and Global
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aspirations.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE (82)
Candidates offering Environmental Applications (Group III) are not eligible to offer
Environmental Science (Group II).

The subject deals with the interdependence of living 4. To develop an awareness of the need and
things within their environment and provides an responsibility to keep the natural system in a
insight into the orderly interplay of factors condition that it sustains life.
influencing environmental change. The impact of
5. To develop sensitivity in personal attitudes to
human demands on renewable and non-renewable
environmental issues.
resources and the limited availability of these
resources in nature, have been linked to correlate 6. To develop an understanding of how local
with patterns of human behaviour necessary to environments, contribute to the global
evolve a sustainable environmental paradigm. environment.
Aims: 7. To develop a sense of responsibility and concern
for welfare of the environment and all life forms
1. To acquire knowledge of the origin and
which share this planet.
functioning of the natural system and its
correlation with the living world. 8. To develop a keen civic sense.
2. To develop an understanding that human beings, 9. To develop a sound basis for further study,
plants and animals are part of a natural personal development and participation in local
phenomenon and are interdependent. and global environmental concerns.
3. To appreciate the influence of human activity on
natural processes.

CLASS IX
There will be one paper of two hours duration (e) A sustainable world.
carrying 80 marks and Internal Assessment of Concept of sustainability to be explained;
20 marks. sustainable societies to be discussed.
1. Understanding our Environment 2. Living things in Ecosystems
(a) Environmental Science. (a) Ecosystem.
What do we understand by ‘Environment’? Concept of ecosystems to be explained; biotic
What does the study of Environmental Science and abiotic structures, organisms and
involve? species; populations, communities.
(b) Our main environmental problems. (b) Habitat and ecological niche.
Environmental problems to be studied in To be discussed in terms of address and
terms of resource depletion, pollution and function.
extinction of species.
(c) How species interact with each other.
(c) A global perspective of environmental
problems. Interaction of species should be covered in
terms of - predation, competition, parasitism,
To be studied with reference to the developed mutualism and commensalism. Law of
and developing countries. Limiting Factors; synergisms.
(d) The root of environmental problems.
Population crisis and consumption crisis
should be covered.

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(d) Adapting to the environment. (e) Biogeographic zones of India.
Evolution by natural selection; co-evolution, The different biogeographic zones/ regions of
extinction. India and predominant wildlife in these zones/
regions.
3. How Ecosystems work
5. Water
(a) Energy flow in ecosystems.
(a) Our water resources.
An explanation of how life depends on the sun;
who eats what; respiration: burning the fuel. Water resource in the form of frozen solid in
Energy transfer: food chains, food webs and polar ice caps, surface water (rivers of
trophic levels. controversy, dams), groundwater (aquifers
running low). Solutions to water shortages
(b) The cycling of materials.
must be covered in terms of desalting the sea,
The water cycle, the carbon cycle (how towing water, water conservation and water
humans are affecting the carbon cycle) and harvesting.
the nitrogen cycle; Not to be tested, for
(b) Freshwater pollution.
knowledge and understanding only.
Point pollution and non-point pollution;
Interdependence of natural cycles.
wastewater treatment plants, pathogens. The
(c) How ecosystems change. manner in which water pollution affects
ecosystems; artificial eutrophication, thermal
Succession- secondary and primary.
pollution. Cleaning up water pollution. The
4. Kinds of Ecosystems special problem of groundwater pollution;
bottled water.
(a) Forests.
(c) Ocean pollution.
Tropical rainforests and threats to
rainforests; temperate rainforests; temperate How pollutants get into oceans; preventing
deciduous forests; Taiga. ocean pollution; who owns the oceans?

(b) Grasslands, Deserts and Tundra. 6. Air
Tropical savannas; temperate grasslands: (a) Causes of air pollution.
prairies, steppes and pampas; deserts;
Tundra. Threats to the temperate grasslands, Air pollution due to - natural disasters;
domestic combustion; air pollution on
deserts and Tundra.
wheels; industrial air pollution.
(c) Freshwater ecosystems.
Major air pollutants - carbon monoxide,
The study to cover - lakes and ponds; wetlands oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulphur, ozone,
- marshes and swamps; rivers. Threats to lead, hydrocarbons, benzene and particulates
wetlands and rivers must also be highlighted. -their sources, health effects and the
(d) Marine ecosystems. environmental effects must be studied.

Estuaries, coral reefs, oceans and how each is Classification of air pollutants based on
threatened should be discussed. Polar composition - gaseous pollutants and
ecosystems of the Arctic and the Antarctic and particulate matter (grit, dust, smoke and lead
the threats to them must also be covered. oxide); broader classification - primary and
secondary pollutants.
Only threats to the specifically mentioned
ecosystems will be tested for the purpose of Aerosols (smog), sources – natural
the examination. The rest are for knowledge (continental, oceanic and anthropogenic);
and understanding. their effect on our lives.

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Air pollution episode - the Bhopal gas Effects of deforestation on climate,
tragedy. atmosphere and soil process.
(b) Thermal inversions, photochemical smog and (b) Soil erosion and desertification.
acid precipitation.
Causes and consequences of soil erosion and
Thermal inversions (Los Angeles), desertification - removal of vegetation,
Photochemical Smog (Mexico City) and Acid overgrazing, overculture, clearance of slopes,
Precipitation (Mumbai) - how acid drought, heavy rainfall, bad farming
precipitation affects ecosystems. practices.
(c) Impact of air pollution. (c) Land pollution.
Impact of air pollution should be covered in Causes and consequences of land pollution -
terms of economic losses, lowered salinization, fertilizers, pesticides, toxic
agricultural productivity and health wastes, nuclear wastes, domestic wastes,
problems. ground water contamination.
7. Atmosphere and Climate 9. People
(a) The atmosphere. (a) World poverty and gap between developed
and developing countries.
Balance between photosynthesis and
respiration; layers of the atmosphere. Not to Dimensions of world poverty and gap between
be tested, for knowledge and understanding developed and developing countries using
only. development indicators such as per-capita
incomes, housing, levels of disease and
(b) Climate.
nutrition.
What determines climate (latitude,
(b) Poverty in developed countries, poverty in
atmospheric circulation patterns, ocean
developing countries.
circulation patterns, local geography,
seasonal changes in climate). Not to be tested, Rural poverty and urban poverty.
for knowledge and understanding only. (c) The implications of poverty trap for the
(c) Greenhouse earth. environment in developing countries.
The Greenhouse Effect, rising carbon dioxide Self-explanatory.
levels, GHGs and the earth’s temperature 10. Urbanisation
(global warming); effect on weather,
agriculture and sea-levels; slowing the (a) Causes of urbanisation.
temperature change. The push-pull factors to be discussed.
(d) The Ozone layer. (b) Manifestations of urbanisation.
Ozone in the troposphere, ozone in the
stratosphere; detection of the damage to the Growth of slums, growth of informal sector,
ozone layer; causes and consequences of pressure on civic amenities; degradation of
ozone thinning; alternatives to CFCs. human resources; growing sense of despair.

8. Soil and Land (c) Social, economic and environmental
problems.
(a) Deforestation.
Problems of housing, congestion, pollution,
Causes and consequences of rapid and loss of agricultural land and provision of
progressive deforestation in the developing services to be covered.
world - fuel crisis, competition for land, land
exploited for cash and food crops, population
pressures, increasing demand for timber to
meet the needs of the developed world,
grazing and its link with desertification.

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11. Agriculture INTERNAL ASSESSMENT
(a) Unsustainable patterns of modern
industrialised agriculture. Any one project/assignment from the prescribed
syllabus.
Monocultures, disappearance of traditional
crop varieties, pollution risk due to use of Suggested Assignments
pesticides and inorganic fertilizers; problems
of irrigation – surface and ground water. 1. Make a survey of any one threat to the local
environment with suggestions as to how the
(b) Environmental damage due to large farm
units. impact of the threat could be gradually reduced.
Self-explanatory. 2. Make a functional model of an
(c) Food mountains in developed countries. apparatus/equipment that could be used to
alleviate the impact of any pollutant and, make a
Surplus and waste.
survey to study the effectiveness of this
(d) The Green Revolution.
apparatus/equipment. (The report of the study is to
Discussion on whether Green Revolution is a form a part of the Project Work.)
success or a failure.

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