<s>[INST] Proving $n^4 + 4 n^2 + 11$ is $16k\,$ for odd $n$ 
if $n$ is an odd integer, prove that $n^4 + 4 n^2 + 11$  is of the form
$16 k$.

And I went something like:
$$\begin{align*}
n^4 +4 n^2 +11
&= n^4 + 4 n^2 + 16 -5 \\
&= ( n^4 +4 n^2 -5) + 16 \\
&= ( n^2 +5 ) ( n^2-1) +16
\end{align*}$$
So, now we have to prove that the product of  $( n^2 +5 )$ and $( n^2-1)$ is a multiple of 16.
But, how can we do this?
If anybody has any idea of how I can improve my solution, please share it here.
Edit updated to include the necessary hypothesis that $n$ is odd.
 [/INST] If $m$ is odd, then $m^2 \equiv 1$ (mod 8), since $(2a+1)^{2} = 4(a^{2}+a) +1$ and $a^2 +a$ is always even when $a$ is an integer. If $h$ is an integer congruent to $3$ (mod 8), then $h^{2}-9 = (h-3)(h+3)$ is divisible by $16$. Now when $n$ is odd, we have $n^{2}+2 \equiv 3$ (mod $8$), so $(n^{2}+2)^{2} \equiv 9$ (mod $16$), so $n^{4} + 4n^{2} + 11 \equiv 9 +7 \equiv 0$ (mod 16).
</s>