You talk to a friend who lives in a different state. She tells you that today it is 12° below zero where she lives. You tell her it is 54° where you live. What is the difference in temperatures?
so 12 below zero is -12. Then we take the 54 and instead of writing the problem as 54 + (-12) (Because that's just confusing) we can write our problem as 54 - 12. 54 - 12 = 42.
