Going green is on everyone's mind these days, and at this year's 27th annual Duquesne Light Home and Garden Show, Bidwell Training Center has set up a 3,000-square-foot area that will inform, entertain and teach visitors about helping the environment.

Gary Baranowski, director of Bidwell's horticulture technology program, and his students have built A-Maze-In-Green that visitors can wend through to see nearly 40 displays from a range of green organizations. After exiting the maze, visitors will be able to head to the marketplace where everything from seeds, orchids, native plants, roses and other products will be for sale.

Bidwell students spent the past six months training in horticulture and have included a demonstration of green roof technologies. "It's not all that difficult to install a green roof, Mr. Baranowski said.

Such roofs save energy, he said, by creating a thermal barrier, which in the summer keeps the surface temperature of the roof much cooler. These types of roofs also mediate storm runoff by helping to keep rainwater out of the storm sewers and, when laid over newly installed conventional roofs, can double the life expectancy of that roof.

One goal of the exhibit beyond educating the public is to give hands-on experience to the Bidwell students. "If they can experience it, if they feel it, touch it, it makes that learning process so much more enjoyable," Mr. Baranowski said.

Another exhibit in the maze aims to teach visitors how to protect water resources. It demonstrates the roof of a garden shed draining into a rain barrel, with the runoff then being used to water the garden. It also seeks to illustrate the danger of dumping chemicals, motor oil and other harmful products down the drain, said Stan Sattinger of the Montour Run Watershed Association, which banded together with other local watershed associations to create the exhibit. "We have to treat water resources with respect and appreciation," he said.

The maze includes other displays from many other green organizations, including the Department of Environmental Protection, Grow Pittsburgh and the Green Building Alliance. Construction Junction has provided recycled materials used for planters and cold frames in the Green Thumb Theater in the back of the building. That area will be used for several short garden seminars during the show's 10-day run.

"My hope would be that people just come away with a sense of what they can do in the environment to change things," said Timothy Blevins, business manager for the Sprout Fund, a nonprofit that supports innovative ideas and grass roots community projects. "Our footprint in the environment does make a difference and I think this is a great beginning conversation that's happening here in Pittsburgh."