12. Building codes regulate the steepness of stairs. Homes must have steps that are at least 13 inches wide for each 8 inches that they rise.
a. Discuss how to find the slope of the stairs.
b. Describe how changing the width or height affects the steepness of the stairs.

Slope tells you about the steepness of a line. It can is the ration of vertical change to horizontal change and you can solve this by using the slope formula:

a. So in your case, starting from the bottom, the slope is:

If you want to use coordinates, you can think of the first point (bottom of the stairs} would be at the point of origin (0,0). The next point would be at the top of the first stair 13 inches wide (horizontal or x) and 8 inches high (vertical or y)

So the coordinates of the two points would be:

(0,0) and (13, 8)

Using the formula we would have:

b. Looking at the answer above, you can see that the slope with increase if the vertical change is greater, so if you increase the height of the stairs, the stair would be steeper. The opposite is true if you would increase the width.

However, if you proportionally increase the width and the height, then the slope will remain the same.

Step-by-step explanation: