The halls of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School were flooded with green and yellow on Friday, as students celebrated the first Brazilian awareness day to honor the Island’s large Brazilian population.

“They’ve all grown about six inches today,” said history teacher Elaine Weintraub, looking out at a crowd of high school students gathered in the school gym, sporting the colors of their homeland flag. Mrs. Weintraub sparked the idea for the celebration earlier this semester, after a Harvard professor visited the high school to talk about the history and culture of Brazil.

That visit prompted Mrs. Weintraub to design a Brazilian history course, which will be added to the class schedule next school year. And she thought a Brazilian awareness day would be the perfect preview.

“It’s kind of like an introduction to what we’re going to have next year,” said Rebecca Barbarosa, a junior at the high school. Ms. Barbarosa was a member of the student committee that organized the event, along with seniors Andora Aquino and Fillipi Gomes. Ms. Barbarosa was born in Cambridge to parents who were natives of Brazil; her cousins Ms. Aquino and Mr. Gomes were both born in Brazil. But they say their connections to Brazil don’t tell the whole story of their heritage.

“Brazil is kind of like America. Everyone from everywhere in the world came to Brazil,” said Ms. Barbarosa. “I’m German, I’m Italian. So it’s a mixture.”

“It’s a melting pot,” added Ms. Aquino, much like the U.S., and the Island.

The kids credit Mrs. Weintraub with the idea, but they all worked hard to turn the concept into reality.

“She was a really big part of it,” said Ms. Barbarosa. “She really got the administration to back us up.”

“She gave us the idea, and she put it on our shoulders. She helped us, but told us to put 100 per cent in,” said Mr. Gomes of his teacher.

And from the looks of the school last Friday, that’s exactly what they did. The day kicked off with a lesson in jujitsu, a Brazilian martial art. And though Ms. Aquino had firsthand familiarity with the history, she said none of that mattered the night before.

“I woke up at six in the morning so stressed out,” she said. “I had to present the history, so I was up last night until 12 memorizing, and I got up this morning again, and still up on the stage I was trembling.”

By early afternoon, hours after her presentation, she seemed to have calmed down enough to enjoy a performance of a traditional Brazilian dance by a group of local dancers clad head to toe in white. The dance looked at times like a battle of avoidance, as dancers swung limbs through the air at one another, without ever following through on a punch or a kick. The dance was included in the day’s schedule after an anonymous donor offered to cover the $200 price tag.

Gathered in a circle around the dancers were dozens and dozens of high school students who signed on to take part in the day’s activities. Most wore green and yellow T-shirts and tank tops that read Brasil . Mrs. Weintraub fit right into the crowd in a green T-shirt with a Brazilian flag painted on her shoulder.

Near the end of the school day, students flocked to one of the school’s cafeterias to sample some traditional Brazilian food, most of which was prepared by Ms. Barbarosa’s mother for the event, and sponsored by Tisbury Farm Market, Cronig’s, Tropical Bakery, and Vineyard Grocer.

Ms. Aquino said the turnout was better than expected. “Hopefully, we can make it an annual thing,” she said.

Mrs. Weintraub hopes so too. But she was quick to thank the three students at the head of the organizing committee for the first year’s event. “I couldn’t have done it without them,” she said. “We’re a team. I think we’re bonded for life.”