<p>A&#xa0;fundamental education in maths and science is a&#xa0;prerequisite for successful participation in the workplace and in society. Out-of-school learning places, especially Out-of-school labs, offer great potential for improving understanding of the natural sciences. Out-of-school learning places in general and Out-of-school student labs are considered to have the ability to promote the experience of intrinsic motivation.</p><p>The extent to which this applies equally to face-to-face and online courses has hardly been analysed to date. This study therefore compares the interdisciplinary course <i>Enzyme kinetics of lactase—understanding and calculating lactose intolerance</i> in online and face-to-face format with reference to the activities of experimentation and mathematical evaluation. The results show that the students in the face-to-face course have a&#xa0;higher activity-related intrinsic motivation when experimenting than the students in the online course. This mainly relates to higher values in the perceived experience of competence. In the area of mathematical evaluation, the students in the online course exhibited higher activity-related intrinsic motivation than the students in the face-to-face course. This is mainly due to higher values for perceived freedom of choice.</p><p>These findings offer numerous opportunities. For example, both formats could be combined in order to promote intrinsic motivation in both activities.</p>