Donald A. Rakow has good news to share: “Spending time in nature benefits us no matter our age.”

Rakow, associate professor of plant science at Cornell and director of the NatureRx @ Cornell program, also served as director of Cornell Botanic Gardens from 1996 to 2013. In 2019, Rakow and his colleague, the late Gregory T. Eels, co-authored the book Nature Rx: Improving College-Student Mental Health.

Since publication of the book, Rakow and other researchers have continued to quantify the health benefits of time spent in nature and share this message with the Cornell community and communities across the country.

On March 25, Family and Children’s Service (F&CS) of Ithaca, a non-profit that provides mental health and social services to children and families in the Ithaca area, invited community members to learn more about Nature Rx and Rakow’s research to measure the positive impacts of time spent in nature.

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