Southern San Joaquin Valley of California:
Went to a cotton gin...loud, dusty place. Got some cotton and cotton seeds.
Went out into the foothills to a basque shepherd camp. Watched sheep shearing with manual shearing scissors. They worked fast and drew a lot of blood.
On the other end, I took a middle school science class up to the Big 4 Ice Caves to see real examples of various parts of the water cycle. One of my students had a hypoglycemic episode at the end of the trail and passed out. I had to piggy-back her dead weight back to the parking lot. (She wasn't petite.) I gained a much greater appreciation for backpack suspension systems after that field trip, which was the last I ever planned.