biology

My Octopus Teacher

My Octopus Teacher is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand My Octopus Teacher rather than just read about it. In short: My Octopus Teacher is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. It documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest.

Key takeaways

My Octopus Teacher belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect My Octopus Teacher to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of My Octopus Teacher from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

My Octopus Teacher is a 2020 Netflix Original documentary film directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. It documents a year spent by filmmaker Craig Foster forging a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest. The film won Best Documentary Feature at the 93rd Academy Awards.

Synopsis In 2018, Craig Foster began free-diving in a cold underwater kelp forest at a remote location in False Bay, near Cape Town, South Africa. The location was near Simon's Town on the Cape Peninsula, which is exposed to the cold Benguela current of the Atlantic Ocean. Foster started to document his experiences, and, in time, met a curious young octopus that captured his attention. The film shows Foster's growing intimate relationship with the octopus as he follows her around for nearly a year. They form an individual bond, and she plays with Foster and allows him into her world to see how she sleeps, lives, and eats. She frequently has to defend herself against pyjama sharks. In one attack, the octopus loses an arm, and she then retreats to her den to recover, slowly regenerating the arm over three months. In a later shark attack, she shows an incredibly improved creativity to survive, including sticking on the shark's back. After mating with a male octopus and producing numerous eggs, she dies naturally while tending to her eggs. Later, a shark scavenges her dead body and carries it off. Foster describes the effect of this mentorship-like relationship the octopus provided him, teaching him a lesson on the fragility of life and humanity's connection with nature. This transfers to Foster creating a deeper bond with his son, Tom, as the boy develops as a diver and marine biology student.

Production In partnership with The Sea Change Project, Off The Fence, and ZDF Enterprises, My Octopus Teacher was executive produced by Ellen Windemuth. It was directed by Pippa Ehrlich and James Reed. Cinematography was handled by underwater cameraman Roger Horrocks, with additional footage from Craig Foster and Roger Horrocks; some underwater footage, not shown in the film, but filmed by the pair at the same location, had previously been included in Episode 5 of Blue Planet II (2017). Foster was also the film's producer, via his involvement with The Sea Change Project, and his wife, Indian environmental journalist Swati Thiyagarajan, was the production manager. The film, which Foster began filming in 2018, was years in the making, and was the first South African nature documentary to be a Netflix Original.

Reception and legacy My Octopus Teacher was released for streaming on Netflix on 7 September 2020. The film received critical acclaim. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 93% of 44 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 7.7/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "A heartwarming look at the way a meaningful bond can transcend just about any barrier, this documentary will leave you asking your friends to come and see My Octopus Teacher with you." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 82% based on reviews from 5 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". The film was spoofed in the 2022 Documentary Now episode "My Monkey Grifter".

Accolades

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with My Octopus Teacher

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what My Octopus Teacher claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to My Octopus Teacher before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about My Octopus Teacher ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of My Octopus Teacher

In research: My Octopus Teacher appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses My Octopus Teacher in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: My Octopus Teacher is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2020 English-language films, 2020 South African films, 2020 documentary films, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for My Octopus Teacher outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study My Octopus Teacher in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what My Octopus Teacher means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain My Octopus Teacher out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is My Octopus Teacher in simple terms?

Why does My Octopus Teacher matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study My Octopus Teacher?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on My Octopus Teacher.