I need some help with this math problem:

Let n be the number of oil refineries at t years since 2005. A reasonable model of oil refineries is n= -2.23t + 210.53. What is the slope of this model? What does it mean in this situation?

recall that the slope-intercept form of a line is

n = mt+b

where m is the slope. Here, that is -2.23

It means that the number of refineries is declining by 2.23 per year, or about 9 refineries every 4 years.

To find the slope of the model n = -2.23t + 210.53, we can observe the coefficient in front of the t term, which is -2.23.

The slope of the model is -2.23. In this situation, the slope represents the rate at which the number of oil refineries is changing per year. It indicates that for every one year that passes, the model predicts the number of oil refineries will decrease by 2.23 refineries.

To find the slope of the given model, we can start by recognizing that the equation is in the form of y = mx + b, where y represents the number of oil refineries (n), x represents the number of years since 2005 (t), m represents the slope of the line, and b represents the y-intercept.

In this case, the equation is n = -2.23t + 210.53. So, the coefficient of t (-2.23) represents the slope of the model.

Therefore, the slope of this model is -2.23.

In this situation, the slope (-2.23) represents the rate of change or the decrease in the number of oil refineries over time. It indicates that, on average, 2.23 oil refineries are closing each year since 2005.