Abstract
When scientific concepts are learned as discrete science concepts learners fail to know how the
concepts are related to each other. Learner conceptual understanding is enhanced when teachers
develop a sense of continuity and coherency in learners as they teach one topic to another. After
realising that pre-service teachers compartmentalise concepts and fail to show relationships
between concepts as evidenced from their failure to teach the concepts accordingly, the
researcher tasked 115 pre-service Life Sciences teachers to conceptualise and articulate the
integration and progression of Life Sciences concepts from Grade 10-12 in groups of six. The
study investigated how pre-service teachers articulated the way they conceptualised this
integration and progression. Thematic analysis of the responses, from the 10 groups who
selected the topic Cells, showed that pre-service teachers could articulate the integration and
progression of concepts from Grade 10 - 12 to a certain extent. It was evident that they needed
to acquire a deeper understanding of Life Sciences concepts in order to explicitly interconnect
them. The study informs teacher professional development programmes of strategies that
engage teachers in activities that stimulate them to identify areas for development.