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
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.
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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.
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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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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.
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Decarbonizing the Detroit River Corridor
Designed in collaboration with the U-M School of Education’s Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research, this digital curricular module,
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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.
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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.
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Home Archival Guide
An introduction to the practice of home preservation developed as part of the 100 Years 100 Stories project at the Detroit Historical Society.
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Detroit River Region Timeline
A working prototype for a robust visual and interactive resource for exploring the environments, institutions, and actors that have shaped the Detroit River corridor over the past millennium. As it continues to expand, this tool will serve as an archive and a pedagogical resource in service of the Detroit River Story Lab’s long-term goal to assemble and curate an archive of resources in support of local organizations’ efforts to reconnect local communities with the river and its stories. By presenting the histories of the Detroit River corridor as those of a coherent, interconnected region, the timeline allows users to explore connections between the river’s past and future, provides an accessible resource for local students to learn about the places they live, and supports local organizations in amplifying marginalized voices the river’s long and storied history.
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Heritage Designation Primer
A resource guide providing an overview of state, national, and international heritage designation opportunities and protocols.
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River Heritage Resource Map
An interactive digital map that catalogues approximately 100 public heritage sites, public spaces, and trails along the Detroit River corridor, providing a visual argument in support of regional heritage development efforts relating to the Underground Railroad and other historical events.
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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.
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