Jobs and Internships at River Expo ’26
Many of the exhibitors at this year’s Detroit River Youth Career Expo are actively hiring for summer internships and full-time […]
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.
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 and social studies learning.
A City Reconnects with the River: Sail Detroit 2025
Margaret Fornes, August 25, 2025 —
Last week, visitors of all ages came to the Detroit Wayne County Port Authority to see four tall ships dock on the Detroit Riverfront for Sail Detroit 2025. This festival, part of the Great Lakes Challenge organized by Tall Ships America, alternates between the Pacific Coast, the Atlantic Coast, and the Great Lakes.
Forging Detroit River connections in a boat shed with community storykeepers
(U-M Detroit | August 5, 2025) Twice a week this summer, middle and high school students have been donning matching blue lab aprons, rubber gloves, and safety goggles to work as a team to construct sailboats. By the end of the program, the students will have created a sailboat from scratch, complete with a sail and name.
Detroit’s ghost streams: Maps of hidden waterways combat city’s flooding problem
Rachel Wilson, Planet Detroit, July 15, 2025
Youth Leadership Council
Through a series of workshops, field trips, and meetings, youth participants of the Youth Leadership Council develop their leadership skills, learn about the river’s relationship to local communities, and explore a wide variety of attractive educational and career pathways in STEM, public humanities, and the skilled trades.
River Opportunity Pathway Profiles
The Story Lab’s place-based programming introduces young adults to the many education, career, and community leadership pathways connected to the water. To highlight these possibilities, we’ve been interviewing Detroiters whose work contributes to the river’s layered stories and creating one-page profiles that showcase their journeys and inspirations.
River as Classroom: Professional Development Workshop Series
The Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER) within the U-M Marsal Family School of Education has partnered with DRSL
Detroit River Education Coalition
The Detroit River Education Coalition, motivated by the vision of an historic waterway transformed into a living classroom, develops high-impact, experiential learning opportunities for students of all ages from the communities along its shores. Since 2021, Coalition partners have expanded the number and reach of place-based educational programs and laid the groundwork for continued growth and community engagement.
Detroit River Scholars
Detroit River Scholars is a free, week-long day camp that explores connections, past and present, between the Detroit River and adjoining communities. Daily field trips to riverside parks, museums, and historical sites provide engaging, hands-on learning opportunities focused on the river’s rich environmental and cultural heritage.
Meeting River People at the Youth Career Expo
Margaret Fornes, April 21, 2025 —
At the third annual Detroit River Youth Career Expo last weekend, there was a special program featuring conversations with four notable “river people” from Detroit, who shared with students stories about both their work and their local communities’ relationships—past, present, and future—with the River.
Detroit River Skiff & Schooner Program
A 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.
Detroit River Youth Career Expo
A 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.
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.
Detroit River Stories Podcast
A student-produced podcast series featuring interviews with local residents about their relationships with the Detroit River.
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.
Historical Newspaper Storymap
An interactive collection of historical and digital maps allowing you to explore the Detroit River Corridor through time.
Digital Mapping Project
An interactive collection of historical and digital maps allowing you to explore the Detroit River Corridor through time.
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.
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.
Resistance on the River Curriculum
An 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.
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.
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.
Climate Change and Carbon Mitigation in the Motor City
In this case, students learn about how carbon emissions and climate change are impacting the city of Detroit, and also begin to learn about some possible solutions.
Decarbonizing the Detroit River Corridor
A sequence of scaffolded exercises uses DRSL’s carbon emissions visualization tool to teach high school students about environmental justice issues and local decarbonization policy options facing Detroit River communities.
Communicating the Impacts of Climate Change
The goal of this case is to help students communicate about their observations, solutions, and the impacts of CO2 emissions on one neighborhood in Detroit. As a final project, they use sources of data and local stories to write an open letter or produce a digital project addressed to members of one of these neighborhoods. Teachers may also use this case to communicate the impacts of CO2 emissions in students’ own neighborhoods and communities beyond the scope of this Gala case.
The House that Changed Lives
A lesson plan based on the life and community building work of Sarah E Ray, an activist known as the Rosa Parks of the Boblo Boat. Consisting of a comprehensive, multi-media discussion guide and a curated collection of archival materials for classroom use, this adaptable curricular module will support social science classes at the middle and high school level throughout the Detroit River region.
Detroit / Rouge River Storybooth Blitz
A day-long event hosted at the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge providing an opportunity for local residents to share and document their knowledge and insights into the history of the rivers as well as what they might envision for their futures.
Underground Railroad Research Guide
A compilation of regional history resources focused on struggles for freedom in the Detroit River borderland including a selected bibliography, annotated lists of digital and physical archives, miniature biographies of local freedom seekers and abolitionists, and suggested angles for future research.
Myth, Memory, and Michigan’s Underground Railroad
An exploration of the ways the history of anti-slavery resistance along the Detroit River has been remembered and occasionally distorted since the end of the 19th century.
Can Detroit students see themselves in their course work? District wants them to weigh in.
Esther Launstein, Chalkbeat Detroit, August 1, 2024
How Black Journalists in Detroit and Canada Have Passed their Pens Along the River
Saarthak Johri and Courtney DuChene, Telegram Newspaper, June 27, 2024
Why Friends of the Detroit River’s volunteers are key to its success
Brady McKillop, Planet Detroit, June 20, 2024
Invasive species an ongoing risk tied to Great Lakes maritime transport
Charlotte Parent, Bridge Detroit, May 26, 2024
Maritime trade poses environmental risks along Detroit River
Charlotte Parent, Bridge Detroit, May 22, 2024
Exploring Community and Connection on the Detroit River
A display poster created by UM graduate student Crystal Cole describing her development of an experiential learning module focused on water quality and ecological connections with the river for use aboard the schooner Inland Seas.
Interpretive Signage for Historic Fort Wayne
Site installations and online content, including a timeline, in support of a new interpretive plan for Historic Fort Wayne, with topics including environmental history, profiles of local civilian employees, migration and ethnic histories of southwest Detroit, Fort Wayne’s connection to the Underground Railroad, and little known Indigenous and colonial-era histories.
Great Lakes Way @ Trenton
A Storymap project imagining possible futures for disused industrial sites along the Detroit River in Trenton, featuring historical contexts, interviews, and captivating site renderings. The project was created by students in a DRSL-linked Public Design Corps studio class at UM’s Taubman College.
Community Dimensions of Coastal Revitalization
Paired conference papers describing the partnership of the Detroit Historical Society and the Detroit River Story Lab on a variety of river-themed programming activities designed to foster place-based environmental and cultural awareness.
