MEXICO — Three students from the Outdoor Skills and Leadership Program at the Region 9 School of Applied Technology are among 10 people across the country selected by Bald Mountain Meadow for a $10,000 guided educational trip for 10 days in Alaska’s Bristol Bay this summer.

Senior Michael Mowery of Telstar High School in Bethel and senior Carter Fuller and junior Kiley LaFollette, both of Dirigo High School in Dixfield, will do some remote flying to a wildlife refuge where they’ll flyfish for sockeye salmon and observe bears. They will also head to Pebble Mine, a long-proposed, highly controversial copper-gold-molybdenum open-pit project in southwest Alaska’s Bristol Bay watershed, threatening the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery.

“I want them to have that exposure so that other people can see what we’re doing here,” said Jeffrey Rainey, a professional Master Maine Guide who started the Outdoor Skills and Leadership program as an instructor five years ago. “This program has been super successful. Students like these come in, and we set the bar a little bit higher. And we take the leadership side of this very seriously. I’m super proud of these kids. It’s a super program and a great class.”

He said all three students are outdoor-minded: Fuller and LaFollette want to be game wardens and Mowery wants to be a wildlife photographer.

The program is called Searching for Wildness in Alaska’s Bristol Bay Watershed: A Bald Mountain Meadow Learning Expedition.

According to the Bald Mountain Meadow website, the program specializes in interdisciplinary, place-based learning expeditions — fostering a deep connection to place through firsthand encounters with natural landscapes and the people who inhabit them.

Students have been asked to write an essay on “why Alaska would be important to you and how that would change your career choices.”

Fuller said when he wrote his essay, he started out logically, focusing on why the trip would help him.

“Then I realized this is mostly about my dream of going and being in the wilderness as much as possible,” he said.

Fuller said he wrote about how, from the time he was young, he loved fishing with his dad and watching documentaries about Alaska, “wanting to be outdoors more, exploring and wanting to have a new experience in a new place.”

Mowery said the trip is her dream.

“I want to travel the world, live in the outdoors and do outdoor photography,” she said.

In her essay, Mowery said she connected with her faith through being in the wilderness and outdoors “where no one has been before.”

“And Alaska is such an untouched, beautiful place and it is every photographer’s dream to be there because you can see anything up there,” she said. “I’m still very much in shock about the whole thing.”

LaFollette’s essay focused on Alaska itself, the mountains and the animals.

“I connected it to wanting to be a game warden and how learning different areas of the United States could help me prepare to be in the Maine woods,” LaFollette said.

All three students noted that their experience in the outdoor leadership class played a major role in what went into their essays, as well as having a profound influence on their future endeavors.

They will fly out around June 26 and returnt July 6.

For the three students, just leaving the state on a plane will be a rare experience. Mowery has never been on a plane, Fuller has not been farther than Boston and LaFollette hasn’t been on a plane in years.

Rainey noted that aside from the 10 participating students, a film crew from Scotland and a professional photographer will join the trip.

The Outdoor Skills and Leadership Program has 26 students and has educated three of the past four Region 9 students of the year, including Mowery, who will be attending Central Maine Community College in Auburn to study graphic design.

Rainey said the program helps students practice public speaking.

“In order to guide, you have to be able to lead. In order to lead, you have to be able to communicate,” he said. “Those three things go hand in hand with what we’re trying to do here. And these guys are exceptional.”

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