Students Motivated by Learning Scientists Struggled to Find Success

Solutions to the world's problems haven't come to famous scientists without a struggle. A study at Columbia University and the University of Washington should give students, especially young women, courage to apply themselves to the task of becoming a scientist. The study found that reading about the failures of famous scientists motivated students not only to pursue studies in science and math but also to improve their performances in all academic studies.

     Artist Teresita Fernandez, a recipient of a $500,000 genius grant from the MacArthur Foundation, goes so far as to suggest something unique and valuable can come from failure. She relates the Japanese idea of kintsugi, "to patch with gold," a practice of using gold to repair a broken bowl. That way the new bowl resembles nothing but itself. Failures unique to an individual can lead to something valuable, if that person keeps pressing forward.

So, what are some of the books that can motivate students to keep pressing forward?

• Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Wallmark and April Chu

Although Ms. Lovelace had to overcome temporary blindness from measles, this daughter of Lord Byron wrote the first computer program after she met Charles Babbage and understood how his first mechanical computer worked.

• Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian by Margarita Engle and Julie Paschkis

In the 17th century, Maria Merian had to work in secret to show butterflies weren't evil creatures that sprang out of mud.

• Primates by Jim Ottoviani and Maris Wicks

To make discoveries about primates, students suffered through many hardships living and working in the African bush with Richard Leakey.

• Brilliant Blunders by Mario Livio

Livio describes scientists who made colossal mistakes before making progress.

Just last summer, when my granddaughter was an intern in a zoology lab, she learned that every day she had to overcome the spiders that wove new webs overnight in the cages of the birds she was studying.