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Bringing Community Together Through Milwaukee Water Films

Michael Timm created Mussel Madness board game to cultivate kids interest in the Great Lakes.

Science writer Michael Timm combined his passion for Great Lakes issues and storytelling to create an 8-minute film about quagga mussels. Then he not only convinced a local movie theater to show his film, Timm convinced three other filmmakers to contribute their work.

The result is the Our Water film event being held at the Avalon Theatre Saturday.

Local historian John Gurda's documentary, created in collaboration with Claudia Looze, Milwaukee: A City Built On Water is included in the line up as well as a film exploring the Great Lakes Compact by Rebecca Klaper.  She is a scientist at UWM's School of Freshwater Sciences.

Timm says another contributor is filmmaker Jenny Plevin.

"She's with Milwaukee Water Commonsand she also works at docUWM making short documentaries.  Her project evolved into a short that showcases the Milwaukee Water Commons," Timm says.

Timm hopes combining history, community, science "and then for me the storytelling to tell us why we should care about the Great Lakes."

Timm also has a young audience in mind.  He created a board game called Mussel Madness.  It's designed to combine the fun of game-playing with instilling interest in the ecosystems of the Great Lakes and a desire to steward them.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGd1UKUCVJE

Susan is WUWM's environmental reporter.<br/>