Via CNN:

A dozen Randolph College students visited the Chicken Ranch, a legal brothel ouside Las Vegas, last week as part of a course on American consumption.

The brothel tour was a natural fit for a class that tells students "don't just study America -- live it," said Julio Rodriguez, the director of the college's American Culture Program.

Each semester the course examines a strain of American culture and ends with a class trip. Past destinations included post-Katrina New Orleans, Walt Disney World and the Civil Rights Memorial Center in Montgomery, Alabama.

This year's focus on Nevada started with a professor's interest in water rights and conservation. It grew to include discussions of the wedding and entertainment industries and, inevitably, prostitution.

The most scandalous field trip I ever made was a trip to the local waste management facility.