The University of Toledo's Stranahan Arboretum is a 47-acre site, about a 10 minute drive from the main campus, that consists of cultivated ornamental trees, rolling lawns, natural woods, ponds, wetlands and prairie.  It serves as one of the Department of Environmental Science's field sites for environmental education and research.  Both graduate and undergraduate courses in ecology and geology use the Arboretum as an outdoor laboratory.

The University of Toledo holds the Stranahan Arboretum in trust, a gift from the family of W. W. Knight (heir to the founders of Champion Spark Plugs).  Mr. Knight married Elsie, daughter of R. A. Stranahan.  Elsie dedicated the facility in her father's name.
 
The original estate, bordered by Wildwood Metropark to the south, was a hobby farm and included fields, horse stables, a pool and tennis courts.  The I-475 highway construction in the 1960s took a large portion of that land and 50+ acres was given to the University of Toledo. The largest portion (47 acres) holds the arboretum collection north of Sylvania Avenue.  The second 5-acre portion contains a section of 10 Mile Creek (Ottawa River) and river bottomland south of Sylvania Avenue.
 
In the main portion of the arboretum, there are approximately 15 acres of woodlot (160+ years old), a restored prairie, two ponds, as well as the collection of trees placed in a mown lawn.  Most of the collection area was formerly used for agricultural purposes.

The central mission of the Stranahan Arboretum is to support research, formal education and public education concerning the nature of cultivated and native plant life in Northwest Ohio.