Students and staff at two Bronx colleges are looking to change the world for the better, one low-energy light bulb, one newly planted tree, one recycled shopping bag at a time.

With numerous new programs emerging at Bronx Community College and Monroe College, these schools are at the forefront of the fight for energy preservation here in New York.

At Monroe College, green initiatives are a part of the school’s yearlong 75th anniversary celebration. To start, the college has plans to place recycling bins around campus and to replace bottled water with filtered water dispensers in the cafeteria. Environmentally friendly light bulbs will be installed in main buildings, and numerous greens will be planted for spring.

In addition, the school hopes to plant 75 trees around the six Bronx campus buildings on Fordham Road and Jerome Avenue, according to a college spokesperson. The school bookstore will sell re-usable shopping bags, and bicycles will be available for students to share at the dormitories on the college’s New Rochelle campus.

The college’s Environmental Club is also doing its part, too. Members are planning to visit P.S. 73 to talk about public health and environmental issues, and then plant a tree at the school.

But the biggest green initiative at Monroe is its new Ustin Hall at 184th Street and Jerome Avenue. The roof will be entirely solar paneled to “support our energy requirements” in the building, said Axelbank. The building is slated to officially open on April 22, and the roof is expected to be operational two months after that.

Meanwhile, in an effort to expose as many students as possible to the concepts of renewable energy and climate change, the college has invited Kevin Doyle, president of Green Economy, a Boston-based training, consulting, and research firm, to speak about “green careers” on March 19.

At Bronx Community College, the City University of New York’s Center for Sustainable Energy started the Change a Light, Change the World program this past fall. So far, 10 students have been trained to become energy advocates; each one is expected to make presentations to fellow students on the use of energy-efficient lights. The primary goal of this initiative: to put energy concepts into the education of students, and to help them take action.

The center has received a donation of 300 compact florescent lights (CFL), and it hopes its newly trained energy advocates can help put them to work, by convincing 300 BCC students and their parents to take a pledge to change at least one CFL in their house.

“In this manner, we will directly impact upon 300 households and help change energy consumption patterns in the Bronx,” said CSE spokesperson Laurie Reilly.

The center was started in 2003 to promote the use of renewable and efficient energy technologies in urban communities through education, training, workforce development, research, and project facilitation. Based in a borough where truck traffic is among the heaviest in the nation, helping contribute to high rates of asthma, acid rain and ground level ozone, the center has devised numerous approaches to solving the Bronx’s environmental crisis.

For starters, CSE is helping create and provide training for “green collar” jobs. In December 2006, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the city would create 5,000 such jobs as part of his PlaNYC 2030, which aims to reduce the city’s carbon footprint by 30 percent.

The center also partners with other schools to further the development of photovoltaics, a technology that converts light directly into electricity. One such partnership is the Solar Energy Consortium, which includes CUNY, Cornell University, Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, Clarkson University, Binghamton University, and the State University of New York at New Paltz.

In June, the center will host the annual New York City Solar Summit, a conference that will include walking tours of prominent downtown solar installation sites and presentations on the latest solar technology developments, policies and green collar training programs.