What do you get when you mix bright minds, a little sweat, and lots of sunshine? Simple: innovative community-led solutions for a sustainable future. During Thanksgiving week, residents of the community of San Hilario and engineers from the University of Oklahoma teamed up to harness the power of the sun and expand learning opportunities for local students.

The engineers are part of Sooners Without Borders, a student organization that combines engineering and service by offering technical assistance to communities both in the United States and abroad; it’s their second time coming to the Lower Lempa through EcoViva. They joined forces with technical staff from the Mangrove Association and members of the Local Youth Group of San Hilario and in just a few days locals and visitors worked together to build a learning garden and a solar-powered irrigation system at the elementary school in San Hilario.

Over the course of three days the group cleared, tilled, and planted the garden space, drilled a 60-foot well, welded a platform for a 120-gallon tank, and hooked up a 130-watt solar panel to power a submersible pump. The project was funded through the university’s WaTER Center with generous donations from two Rotary clubs, Mission Valley Sunset Rotary and United Services Rotary.

Though the project may be small in scope, its impact is considerable. Solar is a clean and abundant source of energy and thanks to the solar-powered irrigation system, students will be able to maintain the garden during the dry season when there is little rain but plenty of sunshine. Even in the wet season, climate change has made rains more unpredictable; this past summer many Salvadoran farmers lost crops to drought, reinforcing the need for climate-smart solutions. Solar power also means savings, as it cuts out the cost of electricity or fuel that would otherwise be used to power the water pump. These savings will pay back the initial investment in the pump and solar panel in just three years.

The school garden will serve as a hands-on learning space for the school’s 558 students and a tool for educators to promote healthy eating and food security in a region facing changing environmental conditions and chronically difficult economic circumstances. José Aníval Chávez, the school’s director, affirmed that the garden and its watering system will serve as a model for other institutions in the area. What’s more, the system’s safe and simple installation means it will be easily replicable in other places.

While practically none of El Salvador’s electricity is derived from solar and wind power – currently most of the country’s electricity needs are being met by fossil fuel-powered thermal plants (38.6%), hydroelectric plants along the Lempa River (29.3%), and geothermal power plants (23.7%) – there is growing interest in pursuing sustainable energy solutions both at a national and local level. The Salvadoran government recognizes the importance of turning to renewable energy sources to mitigate climate change and bolster energy security, and in this vein it is developing large-scale solar and wind energy projects.

And in a country as rich in sunlight as El Salvador, solar makes sense. Average annual global horizontal irradiation (GHI) values from the last 15 years topped 2150 kWh/m2 over much of the territory – which is a scientific way of saying there’s lots of sunlight and it’s just waiting to be harvested.

The Mangrove Association, meanwhile, plans to build additional solar-powered irrigation systems in other Lower Lempa schools as well as look into more ways solar power can be incorporated into rural community infrastructure, further expanding the reach of solar and its power to transform lives.