The invention provides a method for preparing fluorescent carbon nanodots through one-step hydrothermal carbonization by taking kelp as a carbon source. The method comprises the following steps: 1) cleaning, slicing, baking and grinding fresh kelp, and sieving to obtain powder; 2) weighing and dispersing a certain amount of kelp powder in ethanol, stirring to obtain paste, putting the paste in an autoclave, and reacting for a period of time at high temperature; and 3) dispersing the product in ethanol, carrying out suction filtration, solvent rotary evaporation, and centrifugal separation to obtain precipitates, and freeze-drying the precipitates to obtain the carbon nanodots. The method provided by the invention is simple in operation, the cost is low, and the raw materials are easy to obtain; and the prepared carbon nanodots have excellent fluorescent properties and good biocompatibility and are expected to be widely applied to important fields, such as chemical sensing, biological analysis, environmental monitoring, photocatalysis, biological imaging and photoelectric conversion.