The Arctic sea ice has not since melted to the 2007 extent, but annual summer melt extents do continue to be less than the decadal average. Climate fluctuations are well documented by geologic records. Averages are usually based on a minimum of 10 years of averaged data. It is typical for fluctuations to occur from year to year and season to season and still be considered within the range of normal change. Using geospatial technologies, students explore changes in the seasonal sea ice extent covering the Arctic Ocean and draw conclusions as to whether these changes are a result of long-term climate change or weather fluctuations. Further, students speculate about implications and impacts of open waters in the Arctic Ocean. Elements of this lesson have been used over the course of several years in a basic college-level remote sensing class. Content-wise, students are surprised to find an entire agency devoted to studying snow and ice with archived historical data (although gif images, rather than shp files). Students questioned what they heard in the news about climate change, as they view the changing conditions and realize that the September 2007 report, though accurate, was not all there was to know about the topic of sea ice extent. (Contains 6 figures.)