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GREENSBORO — Last year, the environmental sustainability council at Guilford College ran an experiment. They took two classrooms. One, they left normal. The other? They “stuffed it with as much green technology” as they could.

Occupancy sensors control the lights. When someone opens a window, the air conditioning automatically turns off. All of the bulbs are energy efficient.

When the classroom is up and running in the fall, they’ll be able to monitor just how much energy they’re saving, offering a blueprint for the conservation possibilities on their campus.

“It’s not just some arbitrary thing that’s going to show up on the power bill,” said Jim Dees , the school’s sustainability coordinator.

“It’s real, working data that we can get our hands on and do something with.”

Guilford is not the only college implementing green technologies. Across Triad campuses, students are taking part in trayless dining, electronic waste recycling, green dormitories and bike rental programs.

College students are at the forefront of the sustainability movement, Dees said.

“They come fully armed with awareness of trends and great ideas,” he said. “We try to provide as best of an outlet for them to implement some of their ideas as we can.”

With events like POWERless at Elon University, schools are turning conservation into a competition. The race pits residence halls against each other, measuring their energy consumption. Nearly 80 percent of the campus is wired to measure consumption.

“We have put in place a Web site where individuals can go online and view real-time electricity consumption of the buildings that we’ve built sub-meters on,” said Elaine Durr , the school’s sustainability coordinator.

Elon students can also use sustainable transportation such as the school’s BioBuses, which run on the alternative fuel source B20, or the Zipcar car-sharing program.

Laurie Gengenbach, information specialist at the school of agriculture and environmental sciences at N.C. A&T , said it’s difficult to pinpoint the school’s green initiatives because most programs are sustainability-centered.

“We’re all about researching solutions to problems that face industry and that face agriculture,” Gengenbach said.

“And so much of that involves finding more efficient, more economical ways of conducting these industrial processes.

A&T boasts the Center for Energy Research and Technology and the Center for Environmental Farming Systems, which have completed research in energy conservation and sustainable agriculture.

At UNCG, lecturer Charlie Headington brought sustainability into the classroom. In his green urban development class, students create a hypothetical design for their city. Other classes center on local food versus fast food and the intersection between religion and the environment.

Schools should put Earth issues at the center of the curriculum, Headington said.

“Things like our energy sources, water and air are the basic issues that we’ve taken for granted for centuries, and now we’re aware that it’s all very limited,” he said.

“So why not let the university be the place that thinks about this and teaches young people?”

Tricia Nadolny is an intern at the News & Record.