CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Charlotte Mecklenburg School teachers are going back to class this week. The science and math skills they're learning are going beyond the classroom. 

• Twenty CMS teachers and a group of Wells Fargo employees are learning to assemble solar suitcases
• During the school year, CMS students will put together 40 suitcases and send them to schools in Kenya
• The suitcases will help light the classrooms and also help once school is over

Twenty CMS teachers and a group of Wells Fargo employees are learning to assemble solar suitcases.

During the school year, CMS students will put together 40 suitcases and send them to schools in Kenya. The suitcases will help light the classrooms and also help once school is over. 

"In addition to lighting the schools, we're also able to charge cell phone batteries, provide head lamps for the teachers, when they go home, they'll be able to grade papers at night," says Casondra Devine with Wells Fargo. 

Becky Goldberg, a math teacher at Kennedy Middle School, says this is giving students hands-on learning and also showing them how to make a difference around the world. 

"It's not just 'Oh you have the sun and it's powerful.' It's understanding all the little details of how you create energy and how electricity, multiplication and humanitarianism all kind of merge into one," Goldberg says. 

"We Care Solar", the group behind the solar suitcases, says there will be an additional 200 suitcases put in CMS classrooms for continual training. The goal is to assemble and send 40 suitcases a year to Kenya.