Brenna McAndrew, one of hundreds of local students who attended the 32nd annual Envirothon at the Carbon County Environmental Education Center this week, described the event as “pretty cool and a good education for a lot of us.”

McAndrew, a sixth-grade student at the Panther Valley Intermediate School, said, “It’s also a lot of fun.”

Every day this week, selected students from each of the public schools in Carbon County spent a day at the Environmental Center to hear speakers, see presentations and then be tested on various ecological topics.

Elementary students attended Monday and Tuesday, middle school students had their Envirothon on Wednesday, and high school students spent the day there on Thursday.

Each day, not only are the students tested on the presentations, but they were divided into groups of five who competed with each other. Awards were given at the end of the day to the top four high-scoring teams.

The winning high school team is eligible to enter the state competition.

Susan Gallagher, environmentalist with the center, has been there for 31 of the 32 Envirothons.

“We like it for a couple of reasons,” she said. “We get to seek kids from all over the county. All five districts (Jim Thorpe, Lehighton, Palmerton, Panther Valley and Weatherly) are represented. We also had kids from West Penn and Tamaqua in Schuylkill County.”

“We like to touch base with the students, to show them what we can offer and what we have here,” she said.

Among the agencies which present at the Envirothon were the state Bureau of Forestry, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Penn State Extension, Fish Commission, Game Commission, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the Environmental Center.

Gallagher said there’s another objective to the Envirothon. She said older students might look at it as “a mini career day.”

She said, “I encourage the kids to look at the presenters at what they do. This is a chance to ask them questions.”

Interesting to Gallagher is the competitive nature of the students. “This week, we’ve had winners from all different school districts,” she said. “It’s nice to see it (the winners) distributed like that and keep it competitive.”

The Envirothon is made possible through the sponsorship of Lions Club District 14-U Region 2, which provides the attendees with T-shirts and awards.

Luke Graver of the Carbon County Conservation District talked about soils, including erosion, living things in the soil, how soil forms and conservation practices.

Steve Ziegler and Wesley Keller, of the Forestry Service, taught students not only about different types of trees, but also about the outdoors.

Ziegler emphasized the anticipated invasion of the destructive spotted lanternfly. Identifying the fly was one of the things the students had to know in the test they were given.

He urged that if anyone sees a spotted lanternfly locally to report it to the Environmental Center.

Franklin Klock, of the Environmental Center, had samples of various animals on which the students were tested.

Another Environmental Center worker, Jeannie Carl, spoke on current events.

Anthony DeCarolis, a sixth-grader at the Penn-Kidder Elementary School, said his favorite topic was the station on wildlife. He said one of the things he learned is, “If you do things to help wildlife, it will make the environment better.”

For McAndrew, she most enjoyed the talk about aquatics. The presenters were Cynthia Kurtek, an educator at Beltzville State Park and a volunteer at the Environmental Center, and Lisa McCarty, a part-time employee at the Environmental Center and a volunteer.

“I learned about a lot of things that are in the water and about stuff going on in our area like with the Susquehanna River,” she said.

Of the Envirothon in general, she said, “It’s good to be picked for it and it’s a lot of fun.”

Each of the five-member teams that competed had a nickname and a captain.

In the middle school competition, the winners were:

1. Red Morphs of Penn-Kidder school. Team members are Andrew Bosi, Katrin Cavanaugh, Jackolyn Munson, Aurora Vanauken and Andrew Warner.

2. United Unicorns of the Weatherly Middle School.

3. Palmerton Pandas of the Palmerton Junior High.

4. Miraculous Monotremes of Lehighton Middle School.