
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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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.
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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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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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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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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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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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People, Place, & Things
People, Place, & Things is an ongoing collection of stories about Belle Isle and the impact it has on those who visit and nurture it. Each month, we’ll post tales of people whose lives have been transformed, those who have found healing, community, and spiritual renewal through their connection to this unique place.
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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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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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The Detroit River and the University of Michigan
An illustrated history of the many-layered connections between U-M and the region’s defining waterway dating back to the university’s founding in the early 19th century, just a few blocks from the river’s edge.
Featured News
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Amy Emmert: Leading environmental education at Belle Isle in Detroit
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) alumna Amy Emmert (MS/MSEd ’03) decided to work toward her master’s […]
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Taking it to the streets: How the humanities can reframe urban renewal
When the iconic Michigan Central Station in Detroit’s Corktown neighborhood reopened to tremendous fanfare in summer 2024, Motor City native […]
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Students Sail the Detroit River
Detroit! Meaning strait in French, a narrow passage of water linking two larger areas of water. Detroit! Take a moment […]
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Operation Manoomin: Restoring Wild Rice along the Detroit River
Manoomin (mah-NOO-mehn) or wild rice was once very common in coastal marshes along the Detroit River and has always been […]
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Amid Heavy Industry, Canada’s Newest (and Tiniest) National Park
The creation of an urban national park on an unprepossessing parcel of land in the automaking hub of Windsor, Ontario, […]
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Michigan, Canada officially connected by North America’s longest cable-stayed bridge
It’s not open yet, but the Gordie Howe International Bridge has just become an official border crossing, connecting Michigan and […]
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Students from Belle Isle program build their own boat. Now they look to sail it
Eight middle school students returned to Belle Isle this summer for another year of sailing lessons. But a few months […]
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Young Detroiters discover water-linked educational and career pathways at Detroit River Youth Career Expo
Lavonnes Bolds, a forestry student in his final year at Michigan State University, was one young person who attended the […]
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Maritime trade poses environmental risks along Detroit River
Growing up in one of the state’s most polluted ZIP codes, Southwest Detroit resident Theresa Landrum has fought for decades […]