Green Colleges

Nowadays, not only the factories, industries start their journey towards the green future but also many educational institutions like schools and colleges started to prepare their students towards the energy efficient green buildings, green economy and green jobs. Some of the colleges started to offer green building courses for the students as a part of their contribution to the eco-friendliness. By this the colleges  can  create  good  citizens  for  the  future  with  the greater knowledge about the environmentally-friendly features. Here are three colleges that include various excellent the green practices:

Berea College

Berea College at Berea, Kentucky, amazingly locates an Ecovillage that occupying a 5 acre ecofriendly community. The Ecological machine, wetlands, permaculture food forest and individual gardens are the other community features. This energy efficient Ecovillage reduces the energy usage by 75 percent, water usage by 75 percent. The complex includes 50 apartments, a state-of-the-art Child Development Laboratory, a common house and a Sustainability and Environmental Studies (SENS) demonstration house.

The roof top captures the rain water used for the landscape irrigation and for the production of fruits and vegetables. Berea college maintains its own farm to provide the organic produce, beef and pork. Ecovillage recycle and reuse 50 percent of the sewage and waste water. Skillfully, Ecological machines are used to convert the sewage water to swimmable quality water.  This village also incorporates passive solar heating, photovoltaic panels and wind-powered.

Evergreen State College

Green roof of the new building is a greatest highlight of Evergreen State College at Olympia, Washington. This building is being evaluated for the LEED-Gold rating under the USGBC. This tremendous green roof builds 24,000 square-feet on 13 separate green roof areas. This green roof is a live visual representation to develop the sustainability. Roughly, $18 is incorporated for a square-foot with polyisocyanurate insulation with an R-value of 21, bitumen roof system which incorporates recycled materials and stainless steel flashings.

The green roof collects, filters the rain water incident on it and  allow  it  to  flow  into  a  20,000 gallons  reservoir  tank,  which  is  designed  in  such  a  way  to  release  water  back  to  the environment. The students of this college use benches and patio areas, arranged around these green roofs as an interaction place with their staff members. Green Roof uses Garland’s filterdrain 110 as the drainage layer. It is a very high density polyethylene filter fabric fused to a geotextile filter fabric. A drip irrigation system will be used only during the severe drought periods.  Important  advantage  of  this  green  roof  is  it  reduces  the  size  of  the  storm  water preservation ponds.

College of the Atlantic

College of the Atlantic  (COA)  at  Bar Harbor, Maine, USA was inaugurated on Oct 8, 2006 by the resident David Hales had taken an  oath to be a Carbon NetZero  college  by  the  end  of  2007,  to achieve that mission, the students, faculties and the staff worked together and carried out many researches and analyses to offset the greenhouse gas emission.  As on Dec 19, 2007,  COA invested in a greenhouse gas reduction project operated by The Climate Trust of Oregon to offset the 2,488 tons of carbon output over the past 15 months.

COA  uses  only  certified woods,  not  from  the  old-growth  forest  and  no materials  that  emit  gas-chemicals.  COA  uses  a  renewable wood  pellet  boiler  to  heat  20  percent  of  the  college  campus. It  keeps  the  temperature  as  65  during  the  day  time  and  50  at  night  time. Coolant from air-conditioning in library stacks and kitchen used to preheat the hot water.  All toilets, urinals, faucets and shower heads use less than three gallons of water.

By obtaining the electricity through a low-impact hydroelectric generator in Maine, COA reduced its annual greenhouse gas emission and this will be further reduced by 22 percent or about 450 tons by next year. Incandescent light bulbs have been replaced by compact fluorescent where possible. This college makes use of the natural light by installing light shelves, which bounces the light from the windows to ceiling to lights the interior of the rooms. Commuting methods such as carpooling and biking promotes the employees to work from the home.