About Me

Welcome to Outdoor-Tek.  My name is David Mitchell and I spent 31 years in education as an elementary teacher and as a lead teacher for technology.

I am not a scientist, although, I did teach fourth grade science. I have observed nature all my life and loved all the nature books we had in our house growing up. I was a member of the Gorgas Science Society in college that raised awareness and performed conservation work around the Rio Grande Valley and it supported a scientific station in a  cloud forest in Mexico called Rancho del Cielo. Also, I did get certified as a Texas Master Naturalist in 2020, which I recommend to everyone! Most days though, I am discovering nature right alongside my students.

In addition, I wanted to show the appropriate use of technology as an educational tool, in the discovery of nature. There are many technology tools available to the the public to this end and citizen scientists who use these tools are growing in number.  Students can be a part of this growing population. Currently I employ several technologies with students nature discovery. iNaturalist and Seek are just two I utilize just about every time we meet.

So, I spent a several years creating and refining what I thought the program's vision should be along with a lesson plan format. Then I spent a year developing and piloting an enrichment program for an elementary campus based on that vision. The program's vison is pretty simple in that it is to encourage students to spend some time outdoors daily in nature discovery and appreciation. The program took place for an hour or two as an elective, after school and included 2nd-5th grade students.  I used technology to support the program, but the emphasis again is nature appreciation and discovery. In the process, I have collected many online tools and resources. Most of these are not original, so I have published the Resource page entitled " Lesson Plan Resources" to curate these tools. My goal is to provide a lesson plan format and the components for that plan in one place. My hope is, anyone with a desire to, would have a "one-stop- shop" to create a lesson and host an enrichment program for students' nature appreciation and discovery. 

If you would like, I have also created daily lesson plans that were developed over this past year and if you would like to purchase them they are available here (coming soon).  I have added a sample and the lesson template to create your own lessons on the Lesson Plan Resources page. The resources on this site that are mine, are completely free to use for a single classroom teacher, as long as my copyright is maintained. 

I hope to continue to curate the resources page and develop this site to help anyone wanting to discover nature with children. In my view, there are few things in life as rewarding as introducing students to nature and seeing that sense of wonder as they explore! My hope is that anyone who is interested in nature and who would enjoy developing that love of nature in children would be able to use this plan.  

I would like to thank the Communities in Schools of Cameron County ACE  program and BISD schools, Champion and Morningside Elementary for allowing me to work with students after school and for the site managers and staff and teachers who welcomed me to their schools.  Specifically I would like to thank Asael Orozco, Mayra Rangel , Javier Garcia, and Richard Torres, for giving me my start.  Most of all I would like to thank all my students who welcomed me every time we met and made this program a joy to develop.