These guidelines for class activities and student projects in University of Florida's Natural Area Teaching Laboratory were adopted by the Natural Area Advisory Committee on 8 Dec 1995, modified on 1 April 1999, and edited to accommodate the addition of NATL-east in July 2005. In June 2009, the NATL Operations Committee developed a dog policy based on the principles spelled out below.

General

• Activities should be in keeping with NATL’s purpose—i.e., to help students and the public learn about ecology and biotic diversity.
• Activities should maintain, rather than significantly diminish, the usefulness of the area for its purpose.
• Special notice for log-rolling entomologists in NATL.

Types of activities requiring approval

The following types of activities must be pre-approved by the Natural Area Advisory Committee:

• Activities that permanently alter the ecology of the area.
• Activities that may interfere with others using NATL.
• Activities that may diminish the usefulness of NATL for teaching about ecology and biotic diversity.
• Activities in restricted areas (see map below) that last longer than one semester and that are evident in the absence of the user (e.g., flags and stakes marking plots or transects). [See “Uses of NATL’s restricted areas.”]

The northern portion of NATL is for public as well as academic use. The rest of NATL is for academic use only.

This map shows ecosystems for the outline map at left.

Flags, stakes, and equipment may be temporarily left in NATL without permission. However, unless their origin and date of scheduled removal are indicated, they may be removed without notice. In any case, the person who leaves flags, stakes, and equipment should remove them as soon as their purpose is completed.