Measuring Volume of Beans Over Time During Soaking

In answer to your question "Almost certainly not." The total volume of immersed seeds and the water will remain constant, so the top level of the column should not change over time.

The rider to the answer is "Unless somehow the water takes up less (or more) space inside the seeds than it did outside the seeds."

I would rather bet though that your expensive graduated column will suffer catastrophic failure as the expanding seeds will exert sufficient sideways pressure on the device to break it.

Saw similar happen when a storm caused water to get inside a seed display inside the family home a few years ago, but that's another story.

Fill a graduated container with water and then pour the water into the container with the beans until you've well-covered the beans. Note the before-after difference in the water level, which will tell you how much water you used. Call this Volume 1.

Wait until the beans have soaked up as much water as they are going to. Pour out the water from the bean container into an empty graduated container. Note this amount of water that the beans did not soak up. Call this Volume 2.

The difference between Volume 1 and Volume 2 is the amount of water the beans soaked up.

If I understand the homework question correctly the OP wants volume of beans, before and after soaking. The volume of water isn't important.

Take the known volume of beans and soak them overnight, keeping all beans covered completely with water.

In the morning pour out all water and measure the increase in volume.

Of course, the question can be taken any number of ways due to it's ambiguity.

The OP is ambiguous. The amount of water soaked up by the beans is not likely to be the same as the change in volume of the beans. Some of the water may go into pores within the beans; this part will not change the bean volume. Then some other part, especially over time, will cause the beans to swell, which does change their volume. You actually need to measure the volume before and after, by repeating USBport's procedure before/after, for instance.

Pour a known volume of water(volume A) in to cover the beans. Note what the volume of the mixture is(volume B). The difference is the volume of the dry bean or seed. After soaking pour the water out removing as much water from the outside of the beans as possible. Then pour the same volume of water(volume A) back in. Note the new volume(volume C). The difference between A and C is the increase in volume.

Volume increases if you have filled the water almost at the level of beans. Perhaps if you have a lot of water and less amount of beans then there may not be any significant change.

Swollen beans occupy more space due to diameter change. If pot is filled with beans and water then sure some beans will spill out of the pot after soaking water. This can be experimented at home very easily.

YOU can use OIL to measure the volume of the dry beans. Oil will soak much less.

Wash and clean, then soak in water for the required period ... then remove the beans and shake the water from the surface. Re-DO the volume measurement using again, OIL. You can do the maths...

Caution, depending on the oil used, you might not want to eat these beans!

Weigh the beans before and after.

Beans from the field is not 100% moisture free - Therefore measuring the absorbed volume will yield different results depending on the source.

What could work is to soak some beans until . . .

dry the beans on blotting paper

weigh them

put them in a dryer until moisture level is low enough.

Weigh them again -

Calculate.

Alternative is to ask a grain dealer - They don't like to buy your water.

Oops - Volume Volume Volume - why?

You could do your experiment with a MR (at the hospital) and calculate the volumes as you go along. They can calculate exact volumes for whatever they are looking at

Make sure the pot is covered to prevent/reduce evaporation.

O.K. The corollary question: What is the volume of flatulence created vs. time spent in the colon?