I have researched what a local extrema is and every definition is weird or worded to where i do not understand it.

Question

Can anyone explain what local extrema is.

Answer 1

it is where the function changes direction. That is, it stops rising and starts falling (or stops falling and starts rising).

In other words, it is a maximum (or minimum) but only in a small area.

By the time you start worrying about this concept (presumably in calculus) you should have already studied parabolas and so forth, which have local max/mins -- extrema.