[caption id="attachment_333" align="alignleft" width="500"]A healthy lunch option students should be eating. (Photo by Melissa from Flickr Creative Commons)[/caption] The meals and snacks offered to students in schools is an issue that has been changing and improving for decades.

Most recently, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has proposed a new plan to eliminate junk food sold in schools.

This new plan proposed on Feb. 1, titled “Smart Snacks in Schools,” is a part of the government’s efforts to reduce childhood obesity under the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA).

Author, educator, and nutrition coach Dayle Hayes has an overall positive felling about this new plan, but hopes that it doesn’t force people to focus only on the issue of childhood obesity, rather help them to focus on making all children healthy.

[caption id="attachment_276" align="alignleft" width="3264"]Children at Desert Spring Children's Center in Tucson, Ariz. play with the natural materials at the Reggio Emilia inspired school. (Photo provided by Desert Spring Children's Center) [/caption]

Reggio Emilia is an alternative approach to early childhood education that is gathering more and more attention in Arizona.

The program allows children to see their value in their learning community. The philosophy hit the United States about 12 to 15 years ago, and has grown in schools since then.

The North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA) is an organization that promotes the spread of the Reggio philosophy throughout education facilities across the nation.

NAREA held its fourth winter conference in Tucson last weekend at the Tucson Marriot University Park Hotel. Tucson Children’s Project, the University of Arizona and Head Start Children Parent Centers hosted the conference.

“Tucson is unique,” said Reggio educator Andrea Buttrick. “Unique in the way we've supported each other in collaborating and growing.”

This uniqueness ties into the winter conference in Tucson, titled “Walls into Bridges: Transforming Challenges into Opportunities.” It focused on turning the challenges the Reggio philosophy faces in Tucson into occasions in which educators can put this philosophy into practice.