In this lesson students will learn about the impacts of urbanization, and the conservation challenges it poses to wildlife, in particular avifauna. Introductory ecology topics such as the theory of island biogeography and habitat fragmentation will be discussed, and the student will learn about the beneficial role of native plants in urban residential landscaping. A focal paper will be used to better explore these topics, and data from this observational study will be utilized to introduce generalized linear models in the R programming environment. The student should have some prior basic knowledge of introductory ecology concepts, introductory statistics and have R studio installed on their computer with a basic understanding of this programming language. Upon completion of this lesson, students will learn how urban residential yards contribute to the overall green space in urbanized areas and be used as a conservation strategy to mitigate habitat loss. In R, the student will learn how to conduct statistical analyses and determine if the species area relationship and distance effects of the theory of island biogeography predict bird richness in this study system.