What makes an x squared positive or negative when graphing a parabola?

Question

I've been given the y=3x squared and graphing through an x-intercept of 0. I am also using the x coordinates of -1, -2, 1 and 2.

What makes the answers either negative or positive?

Answer 1

Squaring a number will always result in a positive number (unless you're including complex and imaginary numbers, which I'm assuming you're not since this is Algebra 1). Perhaps you are confusing this with taking the square root of a number?