Teal Farm is rich in natural communities and native species. Colorful sugar maples, nesting bobolink, and thriving monarch and milkweed populations are but a few of the native inhabitants. To better understand the flora and fauna of the farm we have mapped all of the natural plant communities and have surveyed for breeding birds and dragonflies. Our goal is use these data to better understand the ecological systems that occur on the farm and to insert this understanding into innovative and sustainable design, striving to invent processes and products that support life and its greater diversity rather than deplete it.