Program manager Tyler Penrod stands along Presque Isle Park’s rocky Lake Superior shoreline during Friday morning’s unveiling of a new name — the Great Lakes Climate Corps — for the Superior Watershed Partnership’s Great Lakes Conservation Corps. The new name was chosen to reflect the mission and values of the climate-focused group, which has conducted hands-on work throughout the Upper Peninsula since 2000, organizers said. (Journal photo by Katie Segula)

MARQUETTE — The Superior Watershed Partnership’s Great Lakes Conservation Corps unveiled a new name — the Great Lakes Climate Corps — along the shores of Lake Superior at Presque Isle Park in Marquette Friday morning.

“After 20 years as the Great Lakes Conservation Corps, the Superior Watershed Partnership program decided to rename it to Great Lakes Climate Corps,” GLCC program manager Tyler Penrod said. “We feel like it better represents the mission of the Superior Watershed Partnership, and a lot of the projects that we have been working on for the last 20 years have (been) related to climate, but we are facing an emergency: our climate is changing in a significant way, and we want our name to reflect our mission and values.”

The GLCC crew members gathered Friday for their third consecutive training day, which served to prepare new and veteran crew members for upcoming summer projects.

“They will be doing some trail work as well as planting trees, restoring our shoreline by planting beach grass,” Penrod said. “They will be planting native species of wild flowers for pollinators, doing E-waste (collection) events, pollution prevention, all sorts of projects.”

This season is the largest group to date for GLCC, organizers said, with eight groups of four people planning to conduct climate-focused work throughout the Upper Peninsula for 12 weeks this summer.

GLCC crews serve all three U.P. Great Lakes watersheds including Superior, Michigan and Huron, according to the SWP. For more information on the GLCC or the Superior Watershed Partnership, visit superiorwatersheds.org.