Mckenzie and cara both tried to find the missing side of the right triangle. explain your reasoning. explain why one of them is correct

It depends on the given information.

McKenzie's work is correct if the two short sides are given as 5 and 13.

Cara's work is correct is almost correct if 5 is one leg, and 13 is the hypotenuse. The exact answer is 12, but she wrote it as approximately equal.  That's her only problem.

By the way, Ddssaa122: when posting questions, the power of a number is written as 5^2 and not 52.  5^2=5*5, 52=4*13, so they are not the same.

If the lengths of the legs of a right triangle are a and b and the hyptonuse is c then
a²+b²=c²
we are given legs of 5 and 13
so the correct equation to solve would be
5²+13²=c²
mckenzie is right

cara did the mistake
5²+b²=13²
that inccorecly assumes that the hypotnuse is length 13in and the missing side is the leg