Education
Start of main content
Age Range: 11-14
Duration: 30-59 mins | 60 or more mins
  • D&T

Santa's suit replacement

Designing a high-tech replacement for Santa’s suit

In the 1870s, the iconic red and white outfit of Santa Claus emerged through the illustrations of American cartoonist Thomas Nast. Fast forward to the present, with advancements in technology, it’s time to reimagine Santa’s suit for a more efficient Christmas Eve.

A redesigned suit could incorporate smart materials, boots that fly like a hoverboard, wearable electronics, or augmented reality headsets that summarise the naughty or nice status of people they look at - there are many options, impeded only by the bounds of creativity!

Activity: Design a suit for Santa

This activity is one of a series of free STEM resources designed to allow learners to use Christmas themes to develop their knowledge and skills in Design & Technology, and Engineering.

In this fun activity, learners will design a replacement for Santa’s suit that meets design criteria and incorporates at least one technology to make Santa’s work easier.

Santa’s clothes have a challenging life. His red suit has to resist wear and tear from sliding down chimneys, resist soot marks, keep him warm in cold temperatures, protect him when he falls off roofs, and give him camouflage when naughty children try to stay awake to see him!

Can you redesign Santa’s suit to protect Santa from knocks and falls, give him camouflage, and keep Santa warm? Remember that the suit must also be aesthetically appealing and include new technologies to make his job more manageable.

The handout includes a body shape to assist in drawing, but if learners prefer, they could draw on the reverse or blank paper instead.

This resource could be a fun one-off main lesson activity to develop creativity and graphics skills in design & technology and increase understanding of how technological developments affect our lives.

Suggested learning outcomes

By the end of this activity, students will be able to design a high-tech alternative to Santa’s traditional red suit, and they will be able to communicate design ideas using sketches, notes and annotations.

The engineering context

A significant aim of technology is to improve the quality of life. One way it achieves this is to make it easier for us to carry out tasks - this has been a common theme from the first use of rocks to hit things to the use of complex robotic systems to manufacture products.

Download the free activity sheet below!

All activity sheets and supporting resources are free to download, and all the documents are fully editable so that you can tailor them to your students and your schools’ needs.

The activity sheet includes teacher notes, guidance, helpful web links, and links (where appropriate) to the national curriculum in the four devolved UK nations; England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

Oh ho ho, please share your classroom learning highlights with us @IETeducation! #SantaLovesSTEM

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