How NATL got its start and its name

In May 1993, about 15 UF faculty members met to consider how to save the campus's last large upland natural area. This area, about 40 acres in the southwest corner of campus, was already used for field trips by classes in botany, forestry, wildlife, and entomology, so the group proposed that it be designated a Campus Natural Area and Outdoor Teaching Laboratory. The group drafted a formal proposal and asked that this usage be made part of UF's Comprehensive Master Plan. In that plan, the area was designated for "Upland Preservation."

In September 1994, faculty from the departments making use of the area formed a Natural Area Advisory Committee and began to develop the area as UF's Campus Natural Area and Outdoor Teaching Laboratory. However, when UF's Physical Plant agreed to donate a sign for the area, without asking, they shortened the name to Natural Area Teaching Laboratory. The Committee accepted the change without complaint, partly because of its convenient acronym: NATL.