Students from Patagonia Elementary School learned about local history and helped clean up a historic schoolhouse site during a recent field trip to Lochiel.

The visit by Kate Musick’s first- and second-grade students to the Lochiel School was the culminating event of a partnership between Patagonia Elementary School, The Patagonia Museum, and The Patagonia Creative Arts Center, Musick said.

For years, the Lochiel Schoolhouse has been a target for vandals and a dumping ground for everything from old batteries to old automobile tires. But now it’s getting a thorough cleaning by volunteers who do not want to see the historic building fall apart.