Because the number inside the parenthesis is less than 1, the population is decreasing every year. The initial population is the 12500. In terms of percentage, .98 is 98%, and the difference between 98% and 100% is 2%, so the population is decreasing by 2% every year. The population after 10 years requires you to replace the t in the equation with a 10. Doing that gives you a population of 10213.4