The Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research (CEDER) within the U-M Marsal Family School of Education has partnered with DRSL to co-organize three river-themed professional development sessions for regional high school teachers to date.
Workshop 1: Climate, Carbon, and Environmental Justice Along the Detroit River
February 10, 2024 — Dossin Museum on Belle Isle
This professional learning experience focused on the current intersectional context of climate change, carbon and greenhouse gas emissions, water quality, and climate justice along the Detroit River.
Participants interacted with subject matter experts from DRSL, as well as with colleagues and educators from the Marsal Family School of Education, to consider how to integrate this content into their curriculum through the complementary lenses of place-based education and culturally sustaining pedagogies.
A stipend and SCECH credits were provided for K-12 teachers.
Workshop 2: Diverse Histories and the Power of Place, Part 1
October 30, 2024 — Dossin Museum on Belle Isle
Our second workshop was the first in a two-part series organized on behalf of the Royal Oak school district. It focused on using local sources as entrypoints to national stories, and included in-person presentations by Detroit Historian Jamon Jordan and Anishinaabe artist Hadassah Greensky.
Workshop 3: Diverse Histories and the Power of Place, Part 2
February 26, 2025 — U-M Detroit Center
For part two in this series, teachers engaged in reflection activity about the field work they’d implemented, engaged with new text sets and culturally responsive pedagogical methods, and heard local historian Rochelle Danquah discuss her experience on the Michigan Freedom Trail Commission, as a secondary school teacher, and her successful effort to get a national Network to Freedom designation for a river-related story linked to Royal Oak.
