the negative exponent law is basically taking a negative exponent and turning it into a positive exponent so that it is easier to work with.

the way Ms. Burton taught us to do it is to make it into a fraction like the image above and to think of it as upstairs and downstairs if an exponent doesn’t like it on a certain floor then it is negative so to get it positive you have to make it happy and move to the only other floor (refer to example in the image)