On one end of the classroom, high school juniors examined little green sprouts – future baby carrots, sprigs of romaine lettuce – poking out of the soil of a drip irrigation system they built a few weeks prior.

On the opposite end of the room, a model of a hydropower plant showed students how the movement of water can stimulate electrical currents. In this class in South Carolina’s Greenville county school district, students primarily learn about one topic: renewable energy.

“It’s an extremely important thing to study, especially now with all the new technology coming,” said 11th-grader Beckett Morrison. In 2023, the school district built this facility, called the Innovation Center, to cycle in different career training programs every few years, based on local business needs.