Taking into account German students’ deficiencies in scientific literacy as well as reading competence and the ‘mother tongue plus two foreign languages’ objective of the European Commission, bilingual courses on molecular biol-ogy (Genetic Fingerprinting, n = 490) and bionics (A Glue from Snail Slime?!, n = 120) were developed. Affective and cognitive factors were measured in a pre, post, follow-up test design, with intrinsic motivation being assessed by the Kurzskala intrinsischer Motivation (KIM) (Wilde et al., 2009). This study focuses on questions concerning the presence of intrinsic motivation under condi-tions where bilingual learning is combined with phases of practical experimen-tation. The intent was to investigate: i) the presence of intrinsic motivation in general, ii) the causes for the occurrence of pertinent aspects of intrinsic motivation (experiment-related or foreign language-related), and iii) possible influences of students’ general interests and preferences relating to intrinsic motivation. Bilingual courses in an out-of-school laboratory can trigger intrin-sic motivation in general, and all-rounders seem to profit from the bilingual courses most. Additionally, it has become evident that the perceived choice seems to be the component of intrinsic motivation showing the greatest cor-relation with content-related biological achievement.