A select group of Palmerton and Pleasant Valley School District students hope their participation in a math competition is as easy as one, two, three.

The students will compete in the 31st annual Lehigh Valley MathCounts on Saturday at Springhouse Middle School, 1200 Springhouse Road in Allentown. The snow date is Sunday.Team from Palmerton Area Junior High School and Pleasant Valley Middle School will be among the 200 students from 25 middle, intermediate and junior high schools in four counties who will compete.Students will take written tests from 9:15 to 11:45 a.m. The top 10 scoring students will face off in the countdown round, a "Jeopardy" style oral competition, at 1 p.m. in the school auditorium.The event is organized by the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the Pennsylvania Society of Professional Engineers for students in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon and Monroe counties.Regional winners advance to the state competition on March 27 and 28 in Harrisburg.Students and coaches devote many after-school hours to prepare for what some have called the "Olympics of math."Prizes at the Lehigh Valley competition include scholarships for math and/or science courses at Cedar Crest College, Moravian College, Lafayette College, Lehigh Carbon Community College and Northampton County Community College.MathCounts, a program of the National Society of Professional Engineers, is a math enrichment, coaching & competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement in every U.S. state & territory to provide today's students with the foundation for success in science, technology, engineering or mathematics careers.The national competition will take place May 8 in Boston.