Project-Related News

On a bright Wednesday morning, forty or so sleepy-eyed high school students from Wyoming Indian High School sit at folding plastic tables. They’ve got journals and pens in front of them, but they’re not in your typical classroom. Instead, they’re in an open field of sagebrush that’s currently home to the Eastern Shoshone bison herd. […]

U-M undergraduate Meghan Wysocki describes her summer internship experience with Inland Seas and the school ship learning station she developed for DRSL’s place-based learning programs on the Detroit River.

The public space on the banks of the Mississippi, which honors a Black skiff boat operator who saved 32 people from drowning, features work by Theaster Gates and James Little.

DETROIT—Joshua Powell, a recent University of Michigan dual master’s graduate in architecture and urban planning who took part in the first ArcPrep course seven years ago, plans to start a firm with his twin brother someday. But first, he joined the Quinn Evans architecture firm in Detroit this summer. “ArcPrep played a big part in

Cargo vessels are some of the dirtiest vehicles in existence. Can a centuries-old technology help to clean them up?

A new law that gives the state’s 32 ports tools to expand and grow the maritime economy started out as a community project for a handful of University of Michigan students. U-M students first worked with the Port of Monroe in 2012 and over the next decade would make the case for investing in ports

Working toward a fairer future requires untangling legacies of displacement, segregation, and inequity in Detroit. Eight Mile Road marks the border between the city of Detroit and the suburbs of Oakland County. But this multilane thoroughfare, which carries traffic past sprawling shopping plazas and neighborhoods of modest single-family homes built during the prosperous years after World War

A maritime high school draws students from every borough and every background. The school’s career-themed curriculum is as novel as its location, with an emphasis on the marine sciences.

Flow Tales are untold stories of water, rivers, seas, lakes, located in an era of disturbed flows around the globe. This collaborative initiative seeks to explore the relationship between landscape and community on a local and global scale as an inspiration for artistic production. An inaugural project on the Asi River draws on books, articles,

FEBRUARY 1938 WAS a wet month in Los Angeles. The ground, where it hadn’t been paved over, was saturated, which meant rain had nowhere to go except into the streets, canals and washes. On the 27th, a storm arrived. During the following days, the city received its second-highest 24-hour rainfall in history. Reservoirs overflowed, dams

Belinda Joslin has owned, raced, maintained and repaired boats all her life. So when she was looking for work after her children started school, she approached her local boatyard in Ipswich. They offered her a job as a finisher and her life was quickly taken over by sanding, painting and varnishing. “I turned up at

The University of Michigan School of Education (SOE) celebrated its centennial in 2021, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This inauspicious start to their second century saw unprecedented challenges for the education system. Staffing shortages and schools closing nationwide upended learning environments as a shifting educational landscape unfolded before them. Despite the problems facing the profession, Elizabeth

Two years ago, a northern Michigan teacher assigned readings on anti-racism to her students. This fall, the books will sit in a cabinet, unused. A prominent conservative group is posting a list of “inappropriate library books” on its website, including “Beloved” by Toni Morrison, “How to be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi and “The 1619 Project:

Detroit — Johnny McMath, 28, has worked in a variety of labor and hospitality positions for the past decade. Now he’s looking for a new experience. “I want to see what it’s like to work on a boat …” said the Detroit resident. “Being out at sea for a couple weeks at a time.” That desire

The idea of sustainable transportation likely conjures images of futuristic technologies and electric cars, as well as scientific advances that have yet to be achieved. But there’s a burgeoning industry made up of sailors, coffee roasters, olive-oil companies, and wineries that’s reverting to shipping practices of the past to move toward a net-zero future.  Instead of transporting

Global trade depends almost entirely on huge, dirty, dangerous container ships. Now a team of French shipbuilders is bringing back wind-powered sea freight

The Mississippi River is at once a symbol of American might, an object of blight, and a constant, flowing reminder of our nation’s complicated past. This richness is what makes the iconic river such a perfect laboratory to develop an innovative humanities curriculum that engages with some of the most pressing issues of our time.