🇧🇷 3 Days to Go: The Final Countdown to Brazil 2026

The packs are ready, the adapters are in hand, and the departure gate is officially in sight. In exactly three days, six months of intensive planning, dreaming, and curriculum building shifts from a laptop screen in Chicago straight to the streets of Rio de Janeiro. 💚💛💙

✨️My Fund for Teachers 2026 Fellowship is finally here.✨️

Putting all the pieces of this fellowship together has required an incredible amount of hard work and logistics. 💪🏻 But knowing that I am about to step onto the ground to investigate sustainable development in Brazil makes every single hour of preparation entirely worth it. 

📍🗺 The Itinerary: From Cityscapes to Natural Wonders

This journey is a massive, multi-regional deep dive into what sustainability actually looks like in a country as rich, diverse, dynamic, and vibrant as Brazil. I will be traveling through three distinct areas to study how environment, policy, and human life intersect:

🏙Rio de Janeiro

Exploring urban resilience and the balance between vast metropolitan sprawl and critical conservation projects inside the stunning Tijuca National Park

🐊Amazonas

Immersing myself in the unparalleled biodiversity of the Amazon Rainforest to see how indigenous communities work to conserve life on land and below water

⚡️Foz do Iguaçu

Studying massive renewable energy infrastructure at the Itaipu Dam and witnessing the sheer, raw power of the Iguaçu Falls

Seeing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) operating in real-time across these ecosystems truly feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

🎒📚 Packing the Gear (and the Pre-Trip Culture)

💯Physically, I am completely ready. I’ve checked my packing list a dozen times: technical gear, proper clothing, rugged shoes, all the electronics, power adapters, and field research materials are officially good to go.

🎭🎵Intellectually, I’ve been trying to immerse myself in Brazilian culture before the plane even takes off. Lately, my free time has been filled with Brazilian cinema, regional YouTube documentaries, and classic literature like Jorge Amado’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. 

📖I am also packing a few modern non-fiction books and a novella for the long flights to keep peeling back the layers of this beautiful country.

😬🗣️ Nervous Energy: The Language Barrier

If I'm being completely honest, there is one thing giving me a healthy dose of pre-trip butterflies: speaking Portuguese. 🦋

🤓I have been studying intensely, trying to master the pronunciation and get the casual rhythm down. But there is a huge difference between practicing on an app, making small talk with AI, or recording a video in an empty room, and actually navigating a bustling street market in Rio...

😝I'm nervous about stumbling over my words, but I am leaning into the discomfort. It's all part of being a student again.

🏫🍎 Bringing the Classroom Along

💙🤍One of the most rewarding parts of this pre-departure phase has been sharing The Peters Project with my students at Mather High School. Engaging with the SDGs together and reflecting how global citizenship connects to our own lives has been incredibly fulfilling. 

I have to admit that I've also really enjoyed creating all of the anticipatory content for Instagram and this blog to generate excitement…or at least try to do so! 🤪🤪

While the countdown graphics and language-practice videos have been a lot of fun to make, I absolutely cannot wait to start sharing the real thing with my students and followers as soon as I arrive in Rio!! 💖💚💛

To all of my supporters: thank you all for the incredible encouragement and for following along with this journey from the very beginning. 

🇧🇷Next stop: Brazil!!! ✈️🌿💡