Taryn has shared a great question:

So I am teaching Algebra II and will be doing a review session on multiplication and division and solving equations using multiplication and division. As I was preparing through my lesson a couple questions came up. I loved how we represented most of our problems graphically in the online course using manipulatives. I am stuck trying to figure out how to represent -4 x-4= 16. I realized that I truly do not understand why two negatives equal a positive even

though I’ve always been told that it was the rule. I have the same problem demonstrating how to divide 15/-3=-5. I was wondering if you could help me understand the underlying mathematics here.