The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate prospective biology teachers' conceptions of teaching biology and identify how these conceptions revealed their strategies for helping their future students' learning of biology. The study utilized drawings, narratives and interviews to investigate the nature of the prospective biology teachers' conceptions in a secondary science teacher education programme, in a university located in the south-west of the USA. Data analysis revealed that three conceptions of teaching biology were common among the participants: (1) teaching biology is an interactive process; (2) teaching biology is a lecture-based process; and (3) learning biology is a visual process. A common theme that underpinned the three conceptions was the simple perspective of using lectures, apparatus and models within interactive processes and lectures as reference points to help students to attach onto biology concepts rather than relating the reference points to prior knowledge and to cognitive activities that foster optimal learning.