BIDDEFORD — Six college students spent eight hours riding bicycles from Salisbury, Mass. to Biddeford on Monday. The 85-mile trip was the first on their journey to help build the climate movement, discourage the use of fossil fuels, and document and share the efforts by local people to build more environmentally sustainable communities.

The students, who hail from as far away as Oakland, Calif. and as close as Maine’s Blue Hill, make up the Maine Team for the New England Climate Summer, a program of The Better Future Project. Five other teams will bike through other parts of New England with a similar message.

Lauren Audi said she’s participating in the program because “it sounded like a meaningful and wonderful way to spend my summer.” Audi is from Saratoga, N.Y. and is a sophomore at Boston College.

The students have already spent two weeks training and learning about environmental science and community organizing.

Now they will spend seven weeks in Maine and will work with community organizations to assist with their environmental efforts.

Biddeford is their first stop. They will spend a week here before heading to Portland and their other locations.

Some of the activities on their busy schedule while in the area will be to partner with the Friends of the Rachel Carson Wildlife Refuge and the Community Bicycle Center, overseeing tables at the Biddeford Farmers’ Market on Thursday and the La Kermesse Franco-Americaine Festival this weekend advertising their mission. On Thursday, they will attend a public meeting at Biddeford City Hall on at 7 p.m. regarding a draft of a volatile organic compound air emissions license for the Maine Energy Recovery Company downtown incinerator. The meeting is being held by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection.

In addition to these activities, said participant Greg Lemieux, from Clinton, Ind., the students plan to make contacts and explore the town. Lemieux is a senior at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Va.

“I’m excited to meet people in the community,” said Katie Herklotz from Blue Hill, who is a junior at Eckerd College in Tampa, Fla. “For two and a half weeks we’ve been training, and we’re excited to get to do it finally.”

The students not only want to speak to people already involved in local environmental efforts, said Avery Beck from Mt. Kisco, N.Y., they also what to speak to others in the community to let them know what’s going on and see if they want to get involved, said the sophomore attending Colby College in Waterville.

The United Methodist Church in Saco is hosting the group.

The trip will culminate when all six teams trekking through other parts of New England eventually meet up in Boston. They will produce a “State of the Movement” report that documents the environmental initiatives throughout their travels, said Audi. She said this will provide inspiration to people around the region from the efforts that people in other communities are undertaking.

— Staff Writer Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, Ext. 324 or dmendros@journaltribune.com.