Check with your local school system to see if there's a green school in your district.

Students at Seven Generations Charter School study the environment to develop their thinking and problem-solving skills.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—The ultimate wish list of many parents with children in public schools includes eager teachers, organic food in the cafeteria, and courses that do more than prepare kids for standardized testing at the end of the year. For a long time, getting those amenities meant shelling out big bucks for private schools, but thanks to the availability of charter schools, more and more parents of public-school children can now see those wishes fulfilled.

Forty states now allow the formation of charter schools, publicly funded schools that are given a certain amount of autonomy in how they conduct their curriculum, provided they meet basic state educational requirements. Like regular public schools, attendance is free for students in the district, though families may end up on a waiting list once the classes are filled. Seven Generations Charter School, which opened up this month across the street from Rodale.com's offices, is the newest in Pennsylvania's East Penn School District, and the latest in the increasing number of “green” charter schools catering to parents who want their children to take a broader look at the world we live in (sometimes literally).

THE DETAILS: Seven Generations is a kindergarten-through-fourth-grade elementary school with plans to expand to eighth grade and eventually become a full K-through-12 school. Housed in a former 19th-century silk mill, the school had enrolled 178 students at the start of the school year. Its name is taken from Iroquois belief: "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." "We felt like something was lacking in other elementary schools in the district, and that teachers were simply teaching to the test," says Phil Arnold, the school’s director of organizational development. Seven Generations doesn’t follow the hierarchy of traditional elementary schools, and Arnold is considered a “coadministrator,” who performs some of the duties of a school’s principal but works with the school’s academic director, who oversees the curriculum.

That’s not the only nontraditional aspect of the school. In addition to pursuing a “zero-waste” policy, in which food scraps are composted and as much trash is recycled as possible, the curriculum in each classroom focuses on a popular teaching method among other green charter schools of the sort, "Environment as an Integrating Context for improving student learning," or the EIC model, as it’s more commonly known. "Our subjects aren’t compartmentalized, as they are in traditional schools," says Arnold, adding that the method requires children to use the environment and their local surroundings as educational tools; for example, combining biology and English by studying the habitat of frogs in a nearby pond and then writing an essay about it. "Teaching material in an interrelated manner can make it much easier to learn and to absorb," says Arnold. "We’re encouraging kids to be problem solvers—thinkers—and asking questions, and then guiding that toward other lessons." In order to facilitate their environmental education, the school is working with nonprofits like the Wildlands Conservancy, a local land-preservation nonprofit, as well as with faculty and students in the environmental science departments of local universities. In addition to the environmental angle, "we’re asking children to be stewards of the community," Arnold says, by using community service as a teaching tool.