How many spanning trees do the graphs have? How many spanning trees do the graphs have?
 
-We know the answer for $a$ is 4 and for $b$ is 40, we could easily do $a$ by drawing it out, but I know for b.) you can use the formula $ \tau (G) = \tau (G/e) + \tau (G − e)$. I know that $e$ is the number of edges but do not know how to numerically represent $G$ or where to go from there. Any help is appreciated.

$e$ specifies a particular edge while $|E|$ would be one way to denote the number of edges. The formula you quoted is called the "deletion-contraction" formula. To use it, start with your original graph and select any edge you want. Then draw two new graphs: one that is the result of contracting the graph along $e$ and the other that is the result of deleting $e$. Add up the spanning trees in each of the new graphs and that is the total number of spanning trees in the original graph.
You might have to repeat this process with your new graphs until you "reduce" them to graphs that you can find the number of spanning trees in by inspection.
