Final answer:
The distance from the diving board to the bottom of the pool is found by adding the height of the diving board above the ground (12 feet) to the depth of the pool below the ground (16 feet), which equals 28 feet.
Step-by-step explanation:
The student is asked to determine the distance from a diving board to the bottom of a pool. Given that the diving board is 12 feet above the ground and the bottom of the pool is 16 feet below the ground, the total distance can be found by simply adding these two values together.
To find the total distance (D) from the diving board to the bottom of the pool, the equation D = 12 feet + 16 feet is used. Solving the equation gives D = 28 feet. Therefore, the distance from the diving board to the bottom of the pool is 28 feet.
This straightforward addition problem does not involve any complex steps or principles of physics; it's a simple matter of summing the two distances to get the total vertical distance between the diving board and the bottom of the pool.