Understanding SlopeUnderstanding slope means understanding two things: steepness and direction.
Imagine that you are a skateboarder about to go down a ramp... Notice how the first skateboarder is going down a steeper ramp. The slope of that line is bigger than the slope of the second skater's line. You may also notice that the skaters are going down the ramp from the left to the right. This makes the slope decreasing (negative).
What if they were going up the ramp? Increasing (positive) slope...
Remember, slope measures the direction of the line - whether our skater is going up the ramp (positive) or going down the ramp (negative). It also measures the steepness of a line - the steeper the ramp the larger the value will be for the slope!
Of course, a skater could also skate on flat ground (zero slope) or try to go straight down the side of a building or ramp (undefined slope).
Now that you understand slope, you can go onto the next lesson: calculating slope. As you know, understanding slope and the y-intercept of a line are two very important topics in algebra. Make sure you got them!
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