In 2019, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant, with input from Lawn to Lake project team members, developed a 50-question natural lawn care survey as part of planned work for an Extension Collaboration Grant. The survey was distributed electronically to residents in Illinois and collected 849 responses. Guided by these survey responses, a soil testing brochure and three versions of a watershed factsheet were drafted and tested in three follow-up focus groups in January 2020. These focus groups took place in Effingham, Milan, and Grayslake, with a total of 18 focus group members from these communities. Based on the informational needs identified and feedback provided through the survey and focus groups, three brochures and three versions of a watershed factsheet are in the final stage of review before being printed and disseminated statewide to county Extension offices and to partners in Illinois and Indiana.
In 2020, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant collaborated with Illinois Extension educators in Cook County and the Conservation@Home program to develop a two-hour natural lawn care workshop for homeowners, which they planned to host three times in April 2020. A train-the-trainer event was held in March 2020 to prepare a team of 20 Master Gardeners to help deliver the program across Cook County. Due to COVID-19, the workshop was instead delivered virtually via an interactive, two-hour webinar that was attended by 168 people, and again as a two-part program in Extension’s Everyday Environment webinar series that was attended by a total of 257 people across the two, one-hour long webinars.
Over this project period, five different Lawn to Lake presentations were given on natural lawn care practices at conferences, community events, and via a podcast episode, reaching a total of 217 people. Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant staffed four pollution prevention and natural lawn care informational booths at conferences, reaching 460 people. One brochure, “Beyond Bluegrass: A Guide to Selecting Low Input Turfgrass in Northeastern Illinois,” was completed and disseminated to Lawn to Lake partners in the Chicagoland region.
You can find more information on this program at lawntolakemidwest.org.
