New Mexico expands its women's history program into schools with a state-funded curriculum based on roadside markers.

A New Mexico program honoring women's contributions through nearly 100 roadside markers is now expanding into K-12 classrooms with a state-funded curriculum. Started in the 1980s after organizers noticed women’s near absence in historical markers, the initiative gained state support in 2006 and has documented women from precolonial times to the present, including Indigenous leaders, artists like Georgia O’Keeffe, pilots, potters, and military veterans. The program, which paused new markers to focus on education, now uses research from the markers to develop a curriculum led by teacher Lisa Nordstrum, backed by bipartisan state funding. The goal is to ensure students learn the full scope of New Mexico’s history, including women’s roles in shaping the state’s culture and resilience.