Background: Physical activity is a familiar feature in schools worldwide. Its most common justification for inclusion is its distinctive contribution to students’ physical health and fitness and claimed benefits to non-physical aspects of education, such as social skills. Possible effects on cognitive and academic performance are less frequently assumed. This article examines the academic effects of ‘Active Learning’ practices in school classrooms. Our objective was to test the claim that physical activity can enhance curricular achievement and learning, specifically curriculum-focused physical activity and Learning Through Movement. Methods: Using a rapid review methodology, in this article we report on the evidence of contributions of active learning from peer-reviewed publications from 2010 to 2022. Results: The literature generally supported the central hypothesis that students in Active Learning conditions out-performed those in non-active conditions, both during Active Learning tasks and later. Whether this was due to the introduction of physical activity in the specific setting of classroom lessons or physical activity per se remains unclear. Conclusions: To ensure positive outcomes from Active Learning, practices should be planned in association with a series of favourable change mechanisms: proactive leadership, teacher engagement, the ease of finding and implementing Active Learning in sessions, and the genuine integration of Active Learning into curricula and lessons.

In the nationalistic atmosphere of the early twentieth century, a nurturing medium for sports practising martial manliness abounded throughout Europe. This framework supported the invention of a new multi-disciplinary sport, aided by Baron Pierre de Coubertin himself: modern pentathlon. Though the idea of a new form of pentathlon was already born in 1894, it took 30 years, until Paris 1924, to establish modern pentathlon within the Olympic Games. This study is concerned with the reasons for that delay. It will be assessed whether the active military preparations around the First World War and the contemporary image of masculinity had a decisive influence on the early history of modern pentathlon. By including historical documents from the IOC archives in Lausanne, Switzerland, the research office for military history in Potsdam, Germany, and the LA84 Foundation in Los Angeles, USA, as well as literature on gender, military sport and Olympic history, this study offers an entirely new view on the early history of a sport that was born in an atmosphere of glorifying manliness and apparent militarism. The history of modern pentathlon thereby provides a particularly appropriate area for the analysis of connections between sport, militarism and masculinity. It was not by chance that the implementation of a combined sport, which included besides swimming and running the three military disciplines of shooting, fencing and horse riding, arose in a pre-war context. Though in 1912 the Great War had not yet begun, the awareness of an upcoming battle was rising and led to a higher attention to Coubertin's almost forgotten assumption of a new sport. In 1924 the advantages were finally admitted on two sides: the army recruited modern pentathletes as future military officers; the sports community appointed skilled officers as successful competitors. Thus the lobby for an Olympic recognition of modern pentathlon was found.

Organising an outdoor event in a venue which has been assigned as a National Park is subject to a far greater number of constraints than in a non-protected area. By using the example of the ultramarathon races across Reunion Island since 1989, this study aims at analysing the history of the event's ecological policies with regard to the special vulnerability of the region, and the changes in status of the concerned landscapes and tourism strategies. The method embraces a study of the existing literature on the history of both the event's organisation and the island's environmental policies over the past 24 years, combined with a press content analysis. The results demonstrate that the creation of a National Park in 2007 and the nomination of large parts of Reunion Island as UNESCO World Natural Heritage sites in 2010 indeed led to further nature conservation policies which were, from then on, followed empathically in order to harmonise ideas of nature conservation and event organisation.

Fencing, shooting, horse-riding, swimming and running – five good reasons for men to argue that women are wrong when asking to be modern pentathletes but also five good reasons for women to counter that they are definitely right. Even though as early as 1912 a British woman had asked to compete in the sport, another 69 years passed until the first female World Championships were held in London in 1981. This paper deals with women's struggle towards an equal participation in modern pentathlon. Whereas the development of men's modern pentathlon remained for the first 37 years exclusively within the Olympic domain, the female movement primary gained ground through regional and national activities. Germany was among the most active countries. After the president of the German Modern Pentathlon Federation had paved the way for women's participation by fighting for its administrative recognition at the end of the 1960s, the strength of female modern pentathlon slowly increased at home as well as abroad. However, men still stood against an equal sports practice of both sexes for more than a decade. The creation of female modern pentathlon World Championships in 1981 was finally not only a result of women's enthusiasm, tenacity and patience but also of men's concession to a female competency which could not be denied any longer.

In London, in 2012, the modern pentathlon (fencing, swimming, horse riding, shooting and running) celebrated its centenary. In its 100 years of Olympic history several rule changes have taken place. Directly after its Olympic debut in Stockholm in 1912, the International Olympic Committee headed by Pierre de Coubertin evaluated the event and criticised the shortcomings between the supposed idea behind the sport and its implementation. After Coubertin's death, the sport continued to develop; recently running and shooting have been joined in a so called combined event. In all cases, the presidents of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM) argued the associated rule changes by referring to the original idea of the modern pentathlon. The sport's insecure future after the Games in Rio in 2016 provides sufficient reason to investigate the discrepancy between the marketing strategy of the UIPM and the ideological origins of the modern pentathlon. It finally allows an analysis of select historical rule changes that fitted the original idea behind the events and those that served purely modern strategies of survival. Thus, the topic also stands as an example of the policies of a contemporary international sports federation that uses (select parts of its) history and (invented) traditions as strong and successful marketing tools.