Pleasant Valley High School’s Envirothon team - the Swamp Tigers - won the top spot at the Monroe County Envirothon on April 28 at the Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center.

They received the Enviro-Owl trophy and will go to the 2023 Pennsylvania State Envirothon on May 24 at Camp Mount Luther in Mifflinburg. The trip to the state competition is sponsored by the Kettle Creek Environmental Fund.

Although the school district’s mascot is the Bears, Maricatherine Garr, a PVHS teacher and their adviser, said she lets the students choose a name that is meaningful to them or funny. Garr said the team said they chose Swamp Tigers, because it sounded “cool and fierce.”

PVHS had four teams that went up against four other high schools in the county: East Stroudsburg Area High School - South, Evergreen Community Charter School, Pocono Mountain East High School and Pocono Mountain West High School.

“The team is very proud of their high scores and incredibly proud of their perfect score in forestry,” Garr said.

The schools competed with a total of 15 teams to test their knowledge of environmental topics: Forestry, Wildlife, Aquatics, Soils, and a current issue, which this year was Adapting to a Changing Climate.

The tests were given by cooperating agencies including the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pennsylvania DCNR Bureau of Forestry and the Monroe County Conservation District.

“Students learn to identify Pennsylvania native species and habitats, species and practices that put our natural environment at risk, and strategies to sustainably balance the use and conservation of our resources,” Garr said. “We learn from Pennsylvania’s past successes and mistakes on how to make environmentally and economically sustainable choices for the future.”

In addition to the Swamp Tigers’ win, the school’s Diving Ducktators took second place, Breaking Bass took third, and a fourth team took fifth place.

PVHS first began competing in the early 1990s in Carbon County and then in Monroe County, Garr said. Since 1997, they have won at least 23 of the past 26 events, but Garr thinks their winning streak extends back even further.

At the state level, PVHS first placed in the Top 10 in 2016. Since the last eight years, they have placed in the Top 10 six more times. Last year, they placed fourth at states, but placed first in 2021. This sent them to the International NCF-Envirothon Competition, where they represented Pennsylvania and placed seventh among other USA teams in the National Envirothon, Garr said, as well as competing against some teams from Canada and China.

Heading to states, the Swamp Tigers told Garr, “We’re very excited and delighted to continue onto the state competition and looking forward to seeing how we can improve and do even better. We’re pumped for the state competition.”

Garr said, “I know how hard these kids have worked. I see the time, effort, dedication that they put into taking this very seriously for months. I am always incredibly proud of their effort and the success that they find.”

Garr said she doesn’t emphasize winning because Pennsylvania is an extremely competitive state. The team will go up against around 65 other teams, and Monroe County has won only once.

“What these kids are doing is more about the people they want to be in the future and the skills they are acquiring through this event,” she said. “I am very confident in this group’s ability to place in the Top 10 and I am incredibly proud of them for trying to earn first place, which is a very difficult feat.

“We compete against schools that have Envirothon classes, home-school groups that use this as their only curriculum for science, and programs that have significant funding and resources, while we do this as an after school activity. This whole team (all four teams, not just the Swamp Tigers) are part of this win and part of the success that this group has earned. They all work incredibly hard and are very dedicated.”

The Top 10 teams win prizes and scholarship money.

The Envirothon is sponsored by the Monroe County Conservation District, Pennsylvania Envirothon Inc. and funded by the Kettle Creek Environmental Fund. For more about Kettle Creek Environmental Education Center, call at 570-629-3061 or visit www.mcconservation.org.