A group of Pennsylvania high-school students who championed a type of salamander nicknamed the snot otter are getting a real-life civics lesson—and it’s a sticky situation.

The teenagers set out last year to get the Pennsylvania General Assembly to designate the Eastern hellbender as the state’s official amphibian. They helped write the bill, introduced in May, that praised the cold-water vertebrate as a “positive symbol for water quality efforts in the state.” They went to the state capital for meetings with lawmakers, and...