Science Lesson Plan · Grades 4-7

Planet Uranus Lesson

Teach students about Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun. The lesson covers its great distance from the sun, extremely cold temperatures, bluish-green methane atmosphere, discovery by William Herschel in 1781, unusual sideways rotation, ring system, and 27 known moons. Includes comprehension questions and answer key.

Lesson Overview

The Seventh Planet: Uranus

Uranus is more than 19 times farther from the sun than Earth, so far that sunlight takes two hours and forty minutes to reach it. Its average temperature is about 350 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The planet appears bluish-green through a telescope because of methane gas in its atmosphere, which is mostly hydrogen. Uranus takes 84 Earth years to orbit the sun and completes one rotation in about 17 hours.

This five-page lesson includes a reading passage on Uranus, comprehension questions, and an answer key. Students learn about Uranus’s discovery, atmosphere, ring system, and its unusual feature: it rotates on its side, with its poles pointing roughly toward the sun.

How to Use This Lesson

1. Read the passage together or have students read silently. Ask students to compare Uranus’s distance from the sun to Earth’s — how many times farther is it?

2. Discuss Uranus’s unusual sideways rotation and why this makes seasons on Uranus very different from seasons on Earth.

3. Assign the comprehension questions independently. Review answers using the key.

Printable Resource

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