The goal of the study was to compare how visual representations were integrated into the contents of the U.S. and Turkish textbooks used in life science. Data was collected from 6th, 7th, and 8th grade middle school topics common to both countries. Content analysis was used to analyse visual representations in textbooks. The visual representations were coded into five categories representative of the level of integration. Findings of the study revealed that many representations in Turkish textbooks were not designed with enough labels and captions compared to the U.S. one. This limited the function of the images in the textbook. The implications for textbook revisions aimed at improving the use of visual representations in the classrooms are discussed.