The Seattle Times Opinion: Youth inactivity is its own health crisis
By Carla Santorno, Pooja S. Tandon, and Bookie Gates
“With most children going to school in front of computers without typical recess breaks, physical education, and youth sports programs, our region’s youth face another health crisis — one of physical inactivity.”
Community Highlight: Wild Grief Virtual Hike Habits
Wild Grief Virtual Hike Habits are an opportunity to come together for grief peer support and nature connection from the comfort of your own home.
This Virtual Hike Habit will start with an opening circle via video chat, similar to the opening circle on our in-person hikes.
Nature and Health Announces New Annual Award
The Nature and Health Wins award recognizes individuals, communities, and organizations for their commitment to anti-racism, equity, nature, and health. Through the generosity of a donor, there will be funds to support future awardees.
Learn more about the winners
Nature and Health Equity and Racial Justice Task Force
Naheed Gina Aaftaab, Sara Breslow, Sean M. Watts, and Isabel Carrera Zamanillo join the Nature and Health Equity and Racial Justice Task Force to build and strengthen our scholarly transdisciplinary relationships.
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As we heal ourselves, we heal the world. And vice versa.
Topic: Reciprocal Healing Roundtable
When: Oct 1, 2020 05:00 PM (Arizona)
This distinguished panel will explore how nature heals, and how we can participate in helping heal the world.
Panel members include Peter Kahn, Jr., Anna O’Malley, Laura Sewall, and Tom Fleischner.
Special Issue of Ecopsychology
Nature and Health’s Steering Committee Members Peter Kahn and Usha Varanasi recently contributed to the new issue of Ecopsychology! Peter Kahn was Editor-in-Chief for the special issue Reciprocal Healing: Nature, Health, and Wild Vitality and Usha Varanasi was published in Focusing Attention on Reciprocity Between Nature and Humans Can Be the Key to Reinvigorating Planetary Health.
Ecopsychology
Nature and Health to host online forum
Together with the University of Washington Nature and Health team, Let It Shine Retreat is excited to invite health and wellness practitioners and researchers to an online forum on August 5th to workshop the Let it Shine wellness retreat concept.
Read moreBlack Lives Matter
The attack on Christian Cooper while birding in Central Park so painfully reminds us how inequitable our access to nature is. The recent killings by vigilantes of Ahmaud Arbery (1994-2020). The killings by police of Breonna Taylor (1993-2020), George Floyd (1976-2020), and Tony McDade (1982-2020) a Black transgender man, remind us yet again that this inequity is driven by deep-seated systemic racism.
Read moreGrowing Old Tales from an Urban Canopy: Reciprocity
Brought to you by Tamara Power-Drutis, Colleen Echohawk, Katie Mosehauer, Lylianna Allala
“Explore the role that trees play in human health and urban climate resilience, particularly amid a pandemic. Talk with City of Seattle urban forestry policy advisor Sandra Pinto de Bader, Urban Forestry Commission chair Weston Brinkley, and University of Washington research social scientist Kathy Wolf about the risks facing Seattle’s local trees with regards to climate change, development, and unintended neglect.
Publication in Press
Focusing Attention on Reciprocity between Nature and Humans
Can be the Key to Reinvigorating Planetary Health
Usha Varanasi, Ph.D., College of the Environment, University of Washington
In Press, Ecopsychology Journal, https://home.liebertpub.com/publications/ecopsychology/300/overview
Mary Ann Liebert Inc., Publishers
This timely essay raises the importance of shifting individual and societal attention to preventive and precautionary measures to maintain human and ecological health.