Columbia (WACH)- It's all about the green, as in going green for the environment at a University of South Carolina event Friday. Engineering students Trey Daniels and Gabriel Brown took time to show off how they want to help. They created a solar powered water filtration system and they have big plan for their portable purifier.

Daniels says, "We plan to send a unit to Africa to Uganda and India and Bangladesh."

"Each week we tackle a new problem of the project so we started off with our overall design," says Brown.

The team discussed several projects but chose water purifying because they say it fills one of the biggest needs in the world. There was also a panel discussion about how that carbon footprint can be washed away. Mark Robertson is with Nature Conservancy of SC and was one of the panelists.

He says, "The vision of a clean energy economy is to develop new energy sources that help us replace fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum."

That's something USC President Harris Pastides says the university is already working on. They have an electric fuel cell bus already on the road; the scoreboard at the baseball stadium is partly powered by hydrogen fuels cells. And Pastides says he wants all university vehicles converted to alternative fuel by 2015. He says more green conversion is on the way  and says it's thanks in part to the students embracing the “enviro-friendly” movement.

Pastides says, "They are the teachers and the leaders of the green movement and of the University of South Carolina."

Daniels says, "I just wanted to make a difference. A lot of people can make a million dollars, not many can make a huge impact on the world."

The panel also discussed the fact that we are ranked near the bottom at 40-th in the country when it comes to energy efficiency. Click here for tips on how you can reduce your carbon footprint.