Detroit River Story Lab
The University of Michigan’s Detroit River Story Lab is an interdisciplinary, grant-funded initiative that partners with regional organizations to reconnect communities with the river and its stories.
Through collaborative research, educational programs, and engagement projects, our partnerships amplify marginalized voices and foreground the role of the river and its shores as sites of connection, stewardship, and healing.
Project Areas
The Story Lab focuses on three overlapping components of narrative infrastructure along the Detroit River corridor. In each of these project areas, we work alongside partner organizations to help gather, contextualize, and share out river-related stories in ways that align with community priorities and activate riverside locations.
Featured Projects
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150 Years Ago, Today
An ongoing collection of stories gathered from historical newspapers from the 1870s, pertaining to the rich history of the Detroit River and its surrounding communities.
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Belanger Park Field Trip Planning Guide
What can a small waterfront park teach us about the Detroit River? This field trip planning guide helps middle and high school students explore the region’s human and environmental stories through interdisciplinary, place-based lessons at Belanger Park. Designed for grades 7–12, it includes activities and resources for before, during, and after the visit, supporting science…
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Detroit River Skiff & Schooner Program
Detroit Historical Society, Educational Programs, Featured Projects, Inland Seas Education Association, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Place-Based Education, Teacher Resources, Wright MuseumA hands-on learning program that connects local youth with the cultural and environmental heritage of the river through tall-ship sailing and boat-building experiences.
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Detroit River Youth Career Expo
Conferences, Detroit Historical Society, Educational Programs, Featured Projects, Inland Seas Education Association, Local Events, Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Oral History, Place-Based Education, Wright MuseumA hands-on exploration of water-linked education and career pathways, for Metro-Detroit youth (15-25) along with their teachers and families. Lunch provided! April 10, 2026 from 10am-5pm.
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The Detroit River Beat
The Story Lab sponsors student internships with nonprofit news organizations, such as Bridge Detroit, Planet Detroit, and Detroit Public Television, to assist thinly stretched staff in the coverage of river-related stories and works with partners to develop new local training opportunities, on campus and in the community, for both student and citizen journalists.
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Detroit River Stories Podcast
A student-produced podcast series featuring interviews with local residents about their relationships with the Detroit River.
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Gala Library
A library of three interactive, STEM-focused curricular modules, designed for high school and college students, take the Detroit River as an accessible and engaging case study for learning about carbon emissions, data visualization, and scientific communication.
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Digital Mapping Project
An interactive collection of historical and digital maps allowing you to explore the Detroit River Corridor through time.
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Lives of Leisure and Labor on the Detroit River
An interactive essay exploring the experiences of those who built, maintained, and traveled on Detroit River steamboats at the turn of the 20th century, with special attention to key events in local labor and racial history and the ways they reflected shifting social and political attitudes of the time.
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Detroit River Corridor Carbon Emissions Visualization Tool
Designed in consultation with history and environmental studies teachers at regional high schools, this multi-layered, interactive ArcGIS map draws on dozens of public data sources to create a comprehensive greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the Detroit River.
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Resistance on the River Curriculum
Detroit River Project, Featured Projects, Learning Materials, Place-Based Education, Teacher ResourcesAn extensive collection of learning materials and lesson plans that engages middle school students with the history of anti-slavery and anti-racist organizing along the Detroit River corridor.
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100 Years Ago, Today
An ongoing collection of stories gathered from historical newspapers from the 18th–20th centuries, pertaining to the rich history of the Detroit River and its surrounding communities.
Featured News
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From ferries to Gordie Howe bridge, how Detroit and Windsor crossings evolved
An elevated view of the Detroit River near the foot of Griswold Street in Detroit, dated 1928. The view shows three tugboats towing one of nine steel tube segments upstream to the area near the foot of St. Antoine Street. After the segments were maneuvered into position, they were sunk in a trench along the river bottom…
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How a 105-foot schooner is teaching teens the Detroit River’s story
On an unusually hot day in late June, a group of about 20 Detroit high schoolers boarded a 105-foot, three-masted tall ship and set sail along the Detroit River. For some, it was their first time on a boat. Many of those students left hoping it wouldn’t be their last.
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Detroit River tour highlights restoration successes
A person standing on the Detroit River shoreline 50 years ago would hesitate to touch the water, according to the Friends of the Detroit River’s McKenzi Waliczek. The progress made since that era — from industrial dumping ground to a beloved recreational and tourist attraction — framed a boat tour led by the nonprofit that…
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Detroit River restoration receives $10 million boost from EPA, state
The EPA is providing $6.5 million and Michigan is adding $3.5 million to clean up contaminated sediment and restore habitat along the Detroit River. The river still contains roughly 3.5 million cubic yards of toxic sediment with high levels of bacteria, PCBs, metals, oil, and grease from Detroit’s industrial past. Work will focus on Upper…
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Michigan loves a ‘river story.’ But happy ending isn’t guaranteed
Michigan may be known as the Great Lakes state, but most of its residents have a river to thank for their hometown’s existence.
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University of Michigan team launches guide to connect 4,800 miles of biking trails along the Great Lakes
Imagine taking a multi-day bike trip from Chicago to Niagara Falls in Buffalo, N.Y., basking in stunning Great Lakes views all along the way. Local communities benefit from regional trails like these through increased economic opportunity: people stay in hotels, eat along the way, and enjoy the cultural and historical sites of different Great Lakes…
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Why does the Detroit River matter? This environmental justice advocate has answers
Skyler Leslie, a Detroit River advocate and environmental justice graduate, is working to preserve the waterway’s layered history — from Indigenous burial mounds to Underground Railroad crossings — through community engagement and interpretive storytelling.
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After Zug Island pollution lawsuit, attorney urges community engagement
The Sierra Club holds a community meeting in River Rouge on the outcome of the EPA’s Clean Air Act lawsuit over Zug Island pollution.
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Historic wild rice restoration underway in the Detroit River: ‘Living tribute to the First Nations’
The Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi is working with conservation partners to restore wild rice in Detroit River wetlands, bringing back a sacred grain that disappeared over a century ago.
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Century of contamination: How Zug Island became Detroit’s industrial epicenter
Early ideas for the island included a city garbage dump with a promise of the operations being “smokeless and odorless,” or improving the land into a “healthful resort similar in attractiveness to Belle Isle.”
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U-M researchers lead 10-year Michigan Maritime Strategy
After talking with lake freighter engineers and shipping company CEOs, boating clubs and ferry captains, frying oil upcyclers and soybean farmers growing crops for biofuels, and many others, Thomas McKenney and his University of Michigan team found a common thread through Michigan’s maritime sector. “While everyone had a unique perspective and viewpoints, all participants emphasized…
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New Southeast Michigan coalition supports federal efforts to revitalize US shipbuilding
Southeast Michigan is one of the nation’s most promising regions for catalyzing growth in the United States’ maritime sector, according to a new coalition that aims to help federal efforts to reinvigorate the nation’s shipbuilding industry with support from over 30 organizations across four counties. The coalition includes the University of Michigan, the Detroit/Wayne County…
