Kara Belinsky summarizes her work on whether suburbanization affects biodiversity on a small university campus, and how monitoring birds across the area can teach us how to design more sustainable suburbs on the institutional grounds and beyond. Belinsky and her students compared bird and tree diversity on campus and in nearby forest areas and then installed a network of 16 bird feeder stations at campus locations that differed in development: pavement/buildings vs. grass, plantings, or forest. Students monitored bird communities at the feeders through the seasons by watching them with binoculars and using video cameras. In summer, the students assisted Belinsky in using mist nets to capture, band, and release over 600 individual birds to measure species population sizes at the feeders. The results of the two projects indicate that suburban development depresses bird species diversity but increases the abundance of invasive bird and exotic tree species (similar to results for larger urban developments), and that bird diversity on campus is best supported by preserving forest fragments and increasing the area of trees planted over lawns. This research led to campus development and landscaping decisions for a dormitory renovation that factored in tree preservation due to bird habitats, demonstrating to the students that their research results can produce sustainable changes beneficial to wildlife and humans alike.